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GIFT 
JUL  21  191« 


EXEMPTING 
THE  CHURCHES 

By  JAMES  F.  MORTON.  Jr. 


"No  person  shall  be  required  to  support  any 
ministry  or  place  of  worship  against  his  consent" — 
The  accepted  American  principle. 

"To  relieve  the  property  of  a  church  from  taxa- 
tion is  to  appropriate  money,  to  the  extent  of  that 
tax,  for  the  support  of  that  church.  .  .  .  To  exempt 
the  church  from  taxation  is  to  pay  a  part  of  the 
priest's    salary." — IngersoU. 


\'  ]  V   h   \i  ^ 


NEW  YORK:       **^r  -" 


THE   TRUTH   SEEKER   COMPANY 
1916. 


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EXEMPTING  THE  CHURCHES. 


An  Argument  for  the  Abolition  of  This  Unjust 
and  Unconstitutional  Practice. 

The  history  of  the  democratic  spirit,  from  its 
first  inception  to  the  present  day,  is  that  of  a 
ceaseless  struggle  with  special  privilege.  The 
principle  of  caste,  in  its  numerous  manifestations, 
is  constantly  at  war  with  the  rights  of  man.  After 
centuries  of  incessant  conflict,  the  advance  of  de- 
mocracy is  beyond  all  question;  and  its  ultimate 
triumph  can  be  denied  only  by  those  who  hold  that 
progress  is  destined  to  cease  and  civilization  to 
decay.  It  has  become  evident  that  what  is  demo- 
cratic is  good  and  beneficial  to  mankind,  that  what 
is  undemocratic  is  evil  and  harmful  to  the  human 
race.  Kings,  kaisers,  emperors,  czars,  hereditary 
aristocracies  and  oligarchies  of  every  kind,  how- 
ever necessary  or  useful  factors  they  may  have  been 
in  certain  early  stages  of  the  transition  from  bar- 
barism to  civilization,  are  now  recognizable  as  drags 
on  the  chariot  wheel  of  progress.  The  world  has 
begun  to  rid  itself  of  all  these  anachronisms;  and 
the  day  of  their  entire  and  permanent  disappear- 
ance can  now  be  foreseen  in  the  not  extremely 
distant  future.  Complete  autocracies  have  prac- 
tically ceased  to  exist.  Monarchy  by  divine  right 
is  recognized  for  the  monstrous  lie  which  it  always 
was;  and  the  few  atavistic  survivals  who  continue 
to  mouth  that  once  revered  phrase  are  abhorred, 
pitied  or  despised  by  all  sane  men  and  women. 
Mixed  governments  are  the  general  rule,  since  the 
old  and  exploded  fallacies  of  personal  government 

337696 


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/.  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

yield  unwillingly  to  the  march  of  progress  and 
justice;  but  in  each  case  the  authority  is  slowly 
but  surely  passing  more  and  more  into  the  hands 
of  the  people ;  and  the  hereditary  rulers  are  becom- 
ing mere  figureheads  or  subsidiary  agents  of  popu- 
lar government,  pending  their  final  disappearance. 
In  our  own  and  a  few  other  lands,  we  are  happily 
rid  of  them  long  since,  and  we  wish  the  same  good 
fortune  at  an  early  date  to  the  rest  of  the  nations. 
The  reactionaries  of  the  different  countries  vainly 
declare  that  democratic  triumph  is  a  sign  of  degen- 
eracy. On  the  contrary,  where  democracy  flour- 
ishes, all  forms  of  progress  are  found  to  thrive 
best.  Each  new  step  in  the  direction  of  human 
liberty  has  been  bitterly  opposed  by  the  worshipers 
of  the  past.  They  have  poured  forth  eloquent 
jeremiads,  and  vehemently  predicted  the  collapse  of 
society  and  the  deterioration  of  the  race,  whenever 
religious  liberty,  freedom  of  the  press  or  of  speech 
and  assembly,  a  republican  form  of  government, 
the  abolition"  of  hereditary  office  and  titles  of  nobil- 
ity, the  overthrow  of  slavery  or  any  other  great 
forward  step  was  proposed ;  and  in  every  single  in- 
stance the  result  of  the  increase  of  liberty  proved 
so  beneficial  to  the  human  race  as  to  give  the  lie 
most  unequivocally  to  the  false  prophets  of  evil. 
Never  has  autocracy  been  proved  to  be  superior  to 
democracy  in  any  single  particular  of  a  fundamental 
nature. 

The  Meaning  of  the  Principle. 

Reading  the  future  in  the  light  of  the  past,  we 
may  safely  maintain  that  a  fuller  application  of 
the  democratic  principle  in  our  own  republic  can  be 
fraught  with  nothing  but  blessings  to  our  people. 
Democracy  does  not  mean  merely  the  election  of 
officials  by  popular  franchise,  nor  is  it  synonymous 
with  unlimited  majority  rule.  Starting  from  the 
premise  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  men  and  women, 
it  necessarily  signifies  the  paramount  importance  of 
the  individual,  and  next  to  the  individual,  the  rights 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  3 

of  the  collective  community.  It  must  protect  the 
individual  to  the  fullest  possible  extent  in  his  ''in- 
alienable rights"  of  'life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness."  It  is  only  when  he  alleges  the  pur- 
suit of  these  rights  as  a  pretext  for  meddling  with 
the  equally  fundamental  rights  of  his  fellows  that 
the  community,  as  the  representative  of  the  total 
rights  of  all  its  members,  finds  warrant  for  inter- 
ference, and  for  restraining  the  invader.  There  can 
be  no  question  as  to  this  general  principle.  The 
difficulties  in  application  arise  only  from  the  facts 
that  the  relative  rights  of  individuals  are  not  mathe- 
matically determinable  and  that  human  judgment  is 
not  infallible.  Lawmaking  is  an  attempt,  more  or 
less  successful,  to  reach  a  workable  approximation 
of  absolute  justice,  based  on  the  general  demo- 
cratic principle. 

The,antith£sis^-af  dpmorrary  is^^ecial  privilege^ 
This  is  the  extension  of  certain  powers  to  one  or 
more  individuals,  at  the  expense  of  one  or  more 
other  individuals,  without  proper  compensation  and 
in  violation  of  equal  justice.  Whatever  interferes 
with  equality  of  initial  opportunity  falls  under  this  . 
head.  Democracy  abhors  all  forms  of  favoritism*/ 
There  is  no  injustice  in  unequal  remuneration  for 
differing  degrees  of  social  service ;  but  there  is  grave 
wrong  in  rewarding  equal  services  unequally  or  un- 
equal services  equally.  All  theories  of  social  reform 
are  based  on  a  more  or  less  clear  realization  of  this 
truth,  and  on  the  supposition,  whether  correct  or  in- 
correct, that  conditions  exist  at  present  which  con- 
fer undue  advantage  on  a  favored  class  or  on 
favored  classes. 

Precedence  of  Individual  Rights. 

What  is  true  of  material  advantage  is  equally  true 
of  prerogatives  of  every  description.  The  state 
cannot  legitimately  restrict  any  form  of  personal 
liberty,  unless  its  indulgence  involves  some  definite 
injury  to  the  liberties  of  others,  and  that  so  great 
as  to  overbalance  the  interests  of  individuals  in 


4  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

maintaining  the  liberty  in  question.  Where  there  is 
a  reasonable  doubt,  democracy  demands  that  it 
be  resolved  in  favor  of  the  individual.  Mere  major- 
ities cannot  decide  the  issue.  Redheaded  men  and 
women  form  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  popu- 
lation; but  the  overwhelming  majority  of  others 
have  no  right  whatever,  under  the  democratic  prin- 
ciple, to  decree  that  this  small  group  shall  be  ex- 
terminated, or  even  that  it  shall  be  subject  to  a 
special  tax  or  to  any  other  burdensome  restraint  not 
applied  to  all  the  people.  Freedom  of  the  press  is 
a  vital  democratic  principle,  which  becomes  abso- 
lutely worthless,  unless  it  be  recognized  as  a  right 
of  even  the  smallest  minority,  no  less  than  of  the 
largest  majority.  The  humblest  citizen  is  entitled 
to  trial  by  jury  and  the  use  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  although  his  enemies  and  accusers  constitute 
the  great  mass  of  the  people.  Majority  tyranny  is 
in  no  sense  genuine  democracy,  but  is  a  wretched 
counterfeit.  As  a  practical  necessity,  the  majority 
must  be  held  to  govern  in  all  matters  of  strictly  col- 
lective concern ;  but  it  has  no  right  to  meddle  with 
that  which  is  strictly  of  a  private  nature. 

The  absolute  and  perpetual  separation  of  church 
and  state  is  among  the  most  imperative  require- 
ments of  the  democratic  principle.  Nothing  can  be 
so  essentially  the  private  concern  of  the  individual 
as  his  personal  beliefs  on  subjects  of  abstract  specu- 
lation. Here,  of  all  places,  the  state  cannot  intrude 
without  rendering  itself  guilty  of  the  foulest  con- 
ceivable crime  against  its  citizens.  Religious  con- 
viction can  never  be  a  collective  matter.  Only  if 
all  the  brains  in  a  group  of  persons  could  be  fused 
into  one,  would  it  be  possible  for  such  group  to 
hold  an  opinion  of  its  own.  Each  of  ten  men  may 
accept  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church ; 
but  the  moment  an  eleventh  man,  who  is  of  another 
way  of  thinking,  joins  the  group,  it  can  no  longer 
be  said  that  the  group  believes  in  the  tenets  of 
Catholicism.  A  majoritv  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing the  group  so  believe;  but  there  is  no  one 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHUXCHEi.  5 

mind  thinking  for  all.  Apparent  exceptions  exist 
only  in  the  case  of  mobs,  in  which  the  free  play  of 
individuality  is  temporarily  suspended,  the  members 
of  the  crowd  being  hypnotized  and  maddened  out 
of  the  capacity  for  intelligent  thought  or  action  by 
some  influence  which  has  been  brought  to  bear  on 
them.  This  is  not  a  collective  mind,  but  the  tem- 
porary surrender  of  a  group  of  individuals  to  an 
overpowering  and  irrational  impulse.  The  mob 
spirit  is  at  the  opposite  pole  from  the  spirit  of 
democracy. 

Opinion  Not  Subject  to  Majority  Rule. 

Not  only  can  a  group  or  a  nation  not  hold  a 
collective  religious  opinion,  but  no  majority  in  it, 
however  great,  can  change  the  opinion  of  a  single 
individual  by  any  form  of  coercion.  It  may  sup- 
press the  outward  manifestation  of  opinion,  and 
may  indirectly  present  considerations  to  the  mind 
of  the  individual  which  will  lead  him  ultimately 
to  recast  his  views  in  some  respects;  but  it  cannot 
directly  command  the  humblest  or  most  docile  of 
its  members  to  change  his  mode  of  thinking  on 
the  instant.  The  pretense  of  uniformity  of  faith 
in  a  people  must,  therefore,  be  the  sheerest  humbug. 
Could  belief  be  collective,  and  made  to  continue  so, 
there  would  be  some  pretext  for  the  advocacy  of 
a  state  church.  Since,  however,  there  is  no  way 
of  making  every  individual  an  organic  part  of  a 
believing  whole,  a  real  state  church  is  an  unquali- 
fied impossibility.  A  dominant  party  or  number  of 
individuals  may  by  sheer  brute  force  compel  the 
rest  of  the  community  to  pay  lip-service  to  a  formal 
organization  labeled  a  state  church;  but  the  total 
amount  of  belief  in  the  dogmas  of  such  an  institu- 
tion will  not  be  increased  in  the  slightest  degree  by 
the  false  label  which  seeks  to  represent  it  as  an 
expression  of  community-belief.  A  state  church 
cannot  become  a  centre  for  collective  worship,  since 
no  such  thing  is  possible ;  it  can  only  bring  together 
for  joint  outward  expression  of  worship  a  mass  of 


6  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

individuals,  the  real  believers  among  whom  will 
engage  in  actual  worship,  while  others,  under  per- 
suasion or  coercion,  will  go  through  certain  me- 
chanical forms  of  no  value  to  themselves  or  to 
others,  in  simulation  of  the  reverence  which  they 
do  not  feel,  and  without  which  their  participation 
in  the  external  rites  of  religion  is  meaningless. 

Union  of  Church  and  State^ — Its  Origin. 

History  joins  forces  with  reason  in  proving  that 
union  of  church  and  state  is  an  intolerable  evil. 
The  state  religions  of  antiquity  were  either  the 
agents  of  political  despotism,  or  themselves,  as  in 
Egypt,  formed  a  special  despotism  under  which 
both  rulers  and  people  were  crushed  to  the  earth. 
Since  the  advent  of  Christianity,  the  rule  of  the 
church  has  never  failed  to  bring  disaster.  The  be- 
ginning of  the  calamity  is  traceable  to  the  reign  of 
the  Roman  emperor  Constantine,  sometimes  mis- 
named "The  Great."  Of  many  bad  emperors,  this 
man  stands  out  conspicuously  among  the  worst. 
Usurper,  liar,  perjurer,  thief,  murderer,  and  villain 
in  many  other  regards,  he  adopted  Christianity  as 
a  state  religion  from  motives  of  an  unusually  crafty 
policy.  So  little  did  his  newly  professed  faith  in- 
fluence his  underlying  character,  that  his  crimes  of 
the  blackest  type  continued  unabated  after  his  pro- 
fessed conversion.  He  did  not  even  respect  the 
foundation  principles  of  Christianity  sufficiently  to 
become  baptized  until  he  lay  on  his  deathbed,  when 
his  grossly  superstitious  mind  deluded  itself  with 
the  fantasy  that  a  few  drops  of  water  and  a  few 
mumbled  incantations  would  have  the  magical  effect 
of  atoning  for  a  lifetime  of  infamy,  and  would  carry 
him  straightway  into  a  region  of  eternal  gratifica- 
tion of  every  desire.  During  Constantine's  reign, 
organized  Christianity  began  by  dividing  official 
honors  with  the  more  ancient  Roman  religion,  and 
ended  by  usurping  the  entire  authority,  and  by  per- 
secuting those  who  still  clung  to  the  faith  of  their 


ftXEMPTING   THE  CHUBCHBS. 


f 


fathers.  Later  emperors  carried  the  process  still 
further,  ostentatious  piety  and  unbounded  corrup- 
tion going  hand  in  hand,  until  Rome  became  a 
synonym  of  utter  rottenness,  and  fell  an  easy  prey 
to  the  barbarian  hordes  which  poured  down  from 
nor  then  Europe. 

With  the  union  of  church  and  state  imder  Con- 
stantine  began  a  period  of  mental  and  moral  stag- 
nation, which  continued  for  about  ten  centuries. 
It  was  an  anti-millennium,  a  thousand  years  of 
distinctively  Christian  rule,  productive  of  every  con- 
ceivable evil,  with  scarcely  a  redeeming  feature.  So 
black  a  night  settled  down  on  the  human  race  that 
by  common  consent  the  epoch  is  appropriately 
known  as  that  of  the  "Dark  Ages."  The  church 
was  sole  master,  and  independence  of  thought  was 
visited  with  torture  and  death.  Persecution,  mas- 
sacre, religious  wars  without  end,  and  extermina- 
tion of  whole  populations  and  the  merciless  slaugh- 
ter of  the  noblest  of  the  race  were  its  characteristics. 
Rome,  the  alleged  "holy  city,"  the  centre  of  church 
power,  was  a  pestilential  swamp  of  vice  and  crime 
beyond  the  ability  of  words  to  describe.  Not  a 
ray  of  hope  appeared  in  the  blackness  until  the 
raising  of  voices  against  the  extreme  control  of  the 
church.  The  human  mind  refused  to  remain  for- 
ever in  fetters,  and  the  rising  movements  of  human- 
ism and  the  renaissance  witnessed  the  beginnings 
of  the  great  revolt.  The  Protestant  Reformation, 
an  attempt  to  purify  Christianity  from  within,  suc- 
ceeded in  rending  the  church  asunder,  but  failed  to 
redeem  it  from  the  worst  of  its  inherent  evils.  Its 
leaders  loved  religious  liberty  as  little  as  did  their 
Catholic  rivals.  Calvinism  proved  to  be  as  ready 
to  murder  in  the  name  of  God  as  ever  Romanism  has 
been.  Persecution  of  heretics,  witch-hunting  and 
the  oppression  of  the  whole  people  for  the  profit 
of  ecclesiasticism  went  merrily  on  in  all  lands.  The 
gradual  fading  out  of  these  horrors  has  been 
brought  about  step  by   step  by  no  other  agency 


8  EXEMPTING  THE  CHURCHES. 

than  by  the  gradual  emancipation  of  the  state  from 

the  clutches  of  the  church. 

Religious  Liberty  the  Test  of  Progress. 

Looking  around  the  world  today,  it  is  easy  to 
measure  the  progress  of  the  different  peoples  by 
the  degree  in  which  they  have  attained  religious 
Hberty.  The  strictly  Catholic  countries,  where  least 
light  has  penetrated,  and  where  the  right  of  the 
church  to  control  the  lawmaking  power  and  to 
dominate  public  education  has  been  longest  recog- 
nized, are  precisely  those  most  backward  in  all 
the  essentials  of  civiHzation;  and  in  each  of  these 
lands,  any  uprising  of  the  people  on  behalf  of  liberty 
and  progress  is  invariably  accompanied  by  an  open 
war  against  the  special  privileges  of  the  church. 
Thus  France  and  Portugal  have  found  it  impos- 
sible to  win  and  hold  their  fundamental  liberties 
except  by  shaking  off  the  ecclesiastical  yoke;  and 
in  these  lands  the  clerical  element  is  foremost  in 
the  evil  work  of  plotting  the  restoration  of  the 
monarchy  and  the  annihilation  of  the  rights  of  man. 
In  Mexico,  the  priesthood  has  been  fully  recog- 
nized as  the  most  deadly  enemy  of  the  people.  In 
Spain,  the  founder  of  secular  education,  Francisco 
Ferrer,  was  brutally  murdered  at  the  behest  of  the 
clerics ;  and  their  associates  in  this  and  every  land 
have  not  ceased  to  spread  abroad  lies  that  are 
intended  to  blacken  his  memory  and  to  excuse  his 
assassins.  The  anti-clerical  and  republican  move- 
ments in  Spain  and  Italy  go  hand  in  hand. 

The  United  States  of  America  started  right  in 
theory,  although  it  has  not  been  always  firm  and 
loyal  to  the  democratic  principle.  Observing  the 
evils  of  a  state  church,  as  they  had  existed  in 
Europe  and  in  the  American  colonies,  our  fore- 
fathers wisely  incorporated  into  the  federal  Consti- 
tution strong  provisions  intended  to  save  our  land 
from  religious  tyranny.  By  this  fundamental  docu- 
ment, the  right  of  political  organization  is  expressly 
derived  from  the  people,  and  not  from  any  sup- 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  9 

posed  divine  sanction.  No  recognition  of  any  re- 
ligious doctrine  appears  anywhere  in  the  instrument. 
To  make  perfectly  clear  the  democratic  purpose  of 
the  Constitution,  a  bill  of  rights,  consisting  of 
eleven  amendments,  was  added  as  a  condition  of 
the  ratification  of  the  instrument  by  the  original 
states.  To  the  eternal  honor  of  the  framers  of 
this  bill  of  rights,  the  first  words  of  its  first  article 
are:  ^'Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an 
establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free 
exercise  thereof!'  The  Constitution  itself  contains 
the  no  less  highly  significant  clause:  *'No  religious 
test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to  any 
office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States/' 

The  various  state  constitutions,  while  not  so  thor- 
oughly and  consistently  secularistic  as  the  funda- 
mental document  of  the  nation,  in  practically  every 
instance  contain  a  general  provision  guaranteeing 
religious  liberty.  The  legislatures  and  courts  have 
often  enough  betrayed  their  trust,  and  have  imposed 
on  the  people  of  the  respective  states  measures  of 
the  grossest  unconstitutionality  and  of  the  most 
shocking  disregard  of  private  right  in  this  regard.^ 
Rarely,  however,  is  warrant  to  be  found  in  a  state 
constitution  for  legislation  looking  toward  the 
patronage  of  any  form  of  religion  by  the  state.  The 
numerous  existing  encroachments  on  our  liberties 
are  as  unlawful  as  they  are  immoral. 

The  People  Greater  than  Any  Constitution. 

Even  were  the  facts  otherwise,  democracy  is 
greater  than  any  constitution;  and  its  vital  prin- 
ciples  would   remain   valid.      From    a   democratic 


*For  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  principles  of  Secularism 
(the  democratic  doctrine  of  absolute  separation  of  church 
and  state)  and  of  improper  religious  legislation  in  this 
country,  see  "The  American  Secular  Union"  (J.  F.  Mor- 
ton, Jr.,  5  cents),  "Christian  Sabbath"  (J.  E.  Remsburg, 
3  cents),  "Congress  and  Sunday  Laws"  (3  cents),  "The 
Fourth  Demand"  (Woolsey  Teller,  10  cents).  All  for 
sale  by  The  Truth  Seeker  Co. 


10  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

point  of  view,  the  state  has  no  right  to  impose  any 
religious  observance  on  a  single  individual,  nor 
to  limit  any  of  his  actions  in  accordance  with  the 
doctrines  of  any  religion ;  it  has  no  right  to  appro- 
priate a  single  cent  of  public  money  for  any  re- 
ligious purpose,  nor  to  cast  its  moral  influence  for 
or  against  any  religion  or  religious  sect.  Its  plain 
duty  toward  all  forms  of  opinion  concerning  re- 
ligion is  to  maintain  a  perfect  neutrality,  and  to 
treat  all  citizens  on  a  plane  of  absolute  equality  in 
this  respect.  The  state  is  officially  neither  Christian 
nor  anti-Christian.  It  is  simply  an  organization  of 
individuals  for  mutual  protection  and  for  the  more 
effective  forwarding  of  their  strictly  collective  aims 
and  interests,  which  are  exclusively  secular.  The 
moment  it  passes  beyond  these  boundaries,  its  ac- 
tions become  ultra  vires  and  tyrannical. 

As  already  shown,  nothing  can  be  more  completely 
and  essentially  a  private  matter  than  religion. 
Where  the  beliefs,  words  or  acts  of  an  individual 
do  not  affect  the  equal  rights  of  any  of  his  fellows, 
singly  or  collectively,  the  state  can  under  no  legi- 
timate pretext  interfere  with  them.  Not  only  may 
it  not  interfere  with  the  free  exercise  of  any  form 
of  religious  worship  or  the  performance  of  any  re- 
ligious acts  not  properly  prohibited  on  grounds  of 
public  policy  independent  of  their  connection  with 
religion,  but  it  is  guilty  of  a  flagrant  denial  of  equal 
justice,  if  it  shows  the  slightest  partiality  to  any 
form  of  religious  or  anti-religious  belief,  or  prac- 
tices any  discrimination  against  any  such.  It  has 
no  right  to  help  or  encourage  any  or  all  forms  of 
religion,  any  more  than  to  hamper  or  discourage 
them.  The  one  thing  to  which  they  are  all,  from 
Roman  Catholicism  to  Atheism,  entitled  to  receive 
from  the  state  on  precisely  equal  terms,  is  protection 
in  the  peacable  exercise  of  their  rights,  involving 
full  liberty  to  spread  their  respective  doctrines  at 
their  own  cost.  No  honest  cult  would  ask  for  more, 
and  no  self-respecting  school  of  thought  would  ac- 
cept less.     Whether  any  particular  religion  or  re- 


EXEMPTING    THE   CHURCHES.  11 

ligion  as  a  whole  thrives  or  decays,  is  none  of  the 
state's  business.  All  it  has  to  do  is  to  give  a  free 
field  to  all,  and  let  them  succeed  or  fail  in  propor- 
tion to  their  ov^^n  merits  and  their  ability  to  con- 
vince men  and  women  of  their  truth  and  of  their 
claim  to  support  at  the  hands  of  individuals. 

The  Inequality  of  Exemptions. 

The  exemption  of  church  property  from  taxa- 
tion is  a  direct  and  unqualified  violation  of  every 
one  of  the  foregoing  principles.  It  is  a  denial  of 
the  foundation  truths  of  democratic  government. 
It  is  a  mean  and  underhanded  attempt  to  do  in- 
directly what  cannot  be  done  more  directly.  In 
its  essence  it  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  in- 
direct support  of  the  church  by  the  state.  It  is  the 
connivance  of  the  state  in  the  picking  of  the  pockets 
of  its  citizens  by  the  church.  Every  dollar  of  taxa- 
tion which  the  church  is  allowed  to  dodge  is  one 
dollar  more  laid  on  the  shoulders  of  the  honest 
taxpayers.  To  exempt  the  church  from  taxation 
means  to  lighten  its  load  at  the  expense  of  the 
people.  It  means  that  the  state  helps  to  proselytize 
in  the  interests  of  special  cults.  The  smaller  or 
incipient  sects,  which  own  no  land  or  buildings,  are 
placed  at  a  relative  disadvantage,  regardless  of  their 
merits  compared  to  the  older  and  stronger  religious 
bodies.  The  state  rewards  mere  acquisition  in  such  a 
way  as  to  facilitate  greater  acquisition.  It  helps  the 
strong  as  against  the  weak,  the  wealthy  as  against 
the  poor.  The  trifle  saved  by  the  small  country 
church,  with  its  cheap  structure  located  on  land  of  a 
nominal  value,  is  relatively  of  immeasurably  less 
help  to  it  than  that  given  to  the  rich  city  church,  with 
its  magnificent  edifice  erected  on  a  plot  worth  its 
tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  and  constantly  appre- 
ciating in  value.  Even  as  among  the  churches 
themselves,  the  system  of  exemption  works  thus 
unfairly  and  in  the  direction  of  concentration  of 
wealth.  It  affords  temptation  to  the  churches  to 
procure  and  hold  much  more  land  than  they  really 


12  EXEMPTING  THE  CHURCHES. 

need,  regardless  of  the  growing  wants  of  the  com- 
munity. 

Talk  of  the  ethical  and  educational  attributes 
claimed  for  the  church  is  wholly  beside  the  ques- 
,  tion.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  state  to  raise 
its  revenues  only  from  the  baser  elements  of  the 
population.  As  its  private  citizens  do  not  pay  taxes 
in  proportion  to  their  lack  of  virtuous  qualities,  so 
neither  should  the  institutions  which  enjoy  state 
protection.  Our  great  philanthropists,  scientists, 
mventors  and  educators  are  not  exempt  from  taxa- 
tion on  the  ground  of  the  great  good  they  are  doing. 
As  citizens  of  the  state  and  nation,  they  receive 
their  share  of  social  advantages,  and  do  not  whine 
over  the  fact  that  they  are  asked  to  pay  their  quota 
toward  the  maintenance  of  those  advantages  for  the 
common  good.  Their  good  deeds  in  addition  are 
voluntary,  and  not  performed  in  the  expectation 
of  being  permitted  to  shirk  their  social  obligations 
by  way  of  reward. 

Churches  Doctrinal,  Not  Moral. 

No  amount  of  sophistry  can  disguise  the  fact 
that  the  church  is  primarily  a  doctrinal  organization. 
No  theories  of  supernaturaHsm  are  needed,  in  order 
to  teach  a  pure  morality,  founded  on  the  social  re- 
lations of  human  beings.  If  the  church  existed 
primarily  for  ethical  purposes,  we  should  not  have 
the  spectacle  of  some  hundreds  of  struggling  sects, 
each  loudly  proclaiming  itself  as  the  great  reposi- 
tory of  fundamental  truth.  The  religious  denomi- 
nations, at  their  best,  are  rival  establishments, 
vociferously  competing  for  public  favor.  To  say 
this,  is  to  cast  no  reflection  on  their  sincerity.  But 
even  the  highest  degree  of  sincerity  does  not  neces- 
sarily involve  freedom  from  error.  As  mutually 
destructive  theories  cannot  be  alike  true,  it  follows 
as  an  imperative  conclusion  that  not  more  than  one 
religious  body  can  be  entirely  correct  in  its  doctrinal 
formulas.  All  may  be  wrong;  all  but  one  must  be. 
And  if  the  truth  rests  in  a  single  religious  sect, 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  13 

there  exists  no  competent  arid  wholly  impartial 
arbiter  to  settle  the  dispute  in  the  eyes  of  every- 
body. Even  if  it  were  not  a  fact  that  majorities 
cannot  determine  truth,  no  one  denomination  has 
anything  like  a  majority.  The  largest  single  body 
is  the  Roman  Catholic.  Yet  even  this  powerful 
body  numbers  less  than  a  sixth  of  the  population 
of  our  country.  Far  behind  it  comes  the  Methodist, 
a  much  subdivided  body.  Even  if  all  its  branches 
be  counted  as  one  united  organization,  it  includes 
less  than  one  in  ten  of  the  population,  and  is  far 
from  containing  even  a  majority  of  the  Protestant 
Christians.  Exemption  from  taxation  is  primarily 
assistance  toward  the  spreading  of  doctrine.  Inas- 
much as  only  one  of  the  beneficiaries  of  this  dis- 
guised state  aid  (if  even  one)  is  the  repository 
of  basic  truth  unmixed  with  glaring  error,  it  follows 
that,  no  matter  where  the  truth  may  lie,  at  least 
five-sixths  and  possibly  an  enormously  higher  pro- 
portion of  the  money  thus  released  for  doctrinal 
proselytism  represents  the  subsidizing  by  the  state 
of  what  is  mathematically  proved  to  be  false  teach- 
ing.    On  this   simple  proposition   all   must   agree. 

The  Preponderance  of  Error. 

If  all  religious  bodies  are  exempt  from  taxation, 
no  member  of  any  one  of  them  can  dispute  the  fact 
that  for  every  dollar  which  the  state  indirectly  con- 
tributes to  the  cause  of  truth,  it  gives  from  five  to  a 
thousand  times  as  much  to  error.  If  all  but  a  mere 
handful  of  the  people  accepted  some  one  creed  as 
divinely  inspired,  while  exemption  from  taxation 
would  still  be  an  unjustifiable  infringement  on  the 
rights  of  the  minority,  there  would  at  least  be  some 
plausibility  in  the  attempt  to  justify  it  on  the  ground 
that  the  balance  of  probability  might  fairly  be 
claimed  for  the  views  of  the  overwhelming  major- 
ity. Unsound  as  such  an  argument  would  be,  it 
would  possess  an  overwhelming  weight  in  compari- 
son with  the  present  position  of  the  tax  exemption- 
ists,  who  would  not  merely  leave  the  enemy  to  sow 


14  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

tares  amid  the  wheat,  but  would  themselves  fairly 
choke  the  good  seed  with  a  crushing  preponderance 
of  foul  weeds.  If  the  democratic  principle  of  sepa- 
ration of  church  and  state  forbids  the  manipulation 
of  public  funds,  and  by  an  obvious  parity  of  reason- 
ing the  taxing  power  of  the  state,  for  the  promotion 
of  any  given  sect  which  may  possess  the  whole  truth, 
the  general  subsidizing  of  all  sects,  so  far  from 
l^ing  less  obnoxious  to  objection  from  the  stand- 
point of  honest  administration,  is  even  more  so, 
since  it  ensures  the  survival  of  a  mass  of  falsehood, 
incapable  of  being  sustained  by  its  own  unaided 
efforts.  It  fosters  the  less  worthy  among  the  sects, 
which  could  not  win  their  way  by  merit;  and  it 
insidiously  corrupts  the  more  worthy,  by  inviting 
them  to  thrive  by  parasitism,  rather  than  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  force  which  resides  in  truth  and  in  the 
consistent  devotion  to  high  ideals. 

The  Partiality  of  Exemption. 

In  thus  granting  an  indiscriminate  subsidy  to  a 
vast  number  of  doctrinal  bodies,  the  state  violates 
the  fundamental  doctrine  of  democratic  neutrality 
and  impartiality.  It  favors  a  portion  of  the  com- 
munity at  the  expense  of  all  the  rest.  The  millions 
of  dollars  which  are  thus  given  back  to  the  churches 
do  not  come  out  of  the  air,  but  out  of  the  pockets  of 
the  taxpaying  citizens,  Jt  is  the  worst  form  of  tax- 
ation without  representation.  It  places  a  premium 
on  dogmatic  faith.  It  is  an  establishment  of  religion 
in  direct  defiance  of  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution. 
Contrary  to  the  rudimentary  principles  of  democ- 
racy, it  places  the  state  in  the  position  of  formally 
endorsing  the  proposition  that  religion  is  a  public 
function  and  not  an  affair  of  the  private  conscience. 
It  differs  from  medievalism  only  in  degree,  but  no^ 
a  whit  in  kind.  It  is  worse  than  robbing  Peter  to 
pay  Paul ;  it  is  robbing  Peter  and  Paiil  to  pay  Judas. 

Rights  of  Conscience  Disregarded. 
Not  only  is  exemption  from  taxation  a  coven 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 


li 


subsidy  for  the  spread  of  doctrinal  proselytism ; 
not  only  does  it  place  the  state  in  the  position  of 
paying  for  the  circulation  of  incomparably  more 
error  than  truth;  not  only  does  it  rob  part  of  the 
community  for  the  benefit  of  another  part;  not  only 
does  it  violate  the  principles  of  justice  and  of  im- 
partiality as  among  the  conflicting  beliefs  of  its 
various  citizens;  not  only  does  it  force  the  tax- 
payers to  support  religion,  whether  they  wish  to  dof 
so  or  not;  not  only  does  it  unite  church  and  statey 
in  defiance  of  democracy  and  equal  liberty;  but  it 
constitutes  a  direct  and  deliberate  violation  of  the 
fundamental  rights  of  conscience.  It  is  not  a  mere 
matter  of  making  individuals  pay  for  that  toward 
which  they  are  indifferent ;  it  is  stealing  their  money ' 
to  assist  in  the  circulation  of  dogmas  which  they 
regard  as  positively  pernicious  and  evil.  In  a  de- 
mocracy, all  citizens  possess  the  same  rights,  and 
can  lawfully  be  called  upon  to  surrender  no  free- 
dom or  prerogative  except  for  some  public  end  of 
paramount  consequence.  No  majority,  however 
large,  can  offer  the  faintest  valid  excuse  for  tramp- 
ling on  the  private  convictions  of  the  humblest  mem- 
ber of  society.  By  all  uncorrupted  minds,  it  would 
be  at  once  recognized  as  the  most  glaring  tyranny 
to  demand  that  any  individual  be  compelled  to  make 
public  or  private  profession  of  a  faith  in  which  he 
did  not  actually  believe,  or  that  he  be  required  to 
participate  in  public  worship  against  the  dictates 
of  his  own  reason  and  conscience.  Such  infamies 
have  been  perpetrated  in  the  history  of  mankind; 
but  they  are  now  justly  abhorred  by  all  who  have 
assimilated  the  elementary  lessons  of  civilization. 
No  longer  are  men  and  women  hunted  down  as 
heretics  for  their  honest  inability  to  believe  that  a 
muttered  priestly  conjuration  can  turn  a  cracker 
into  the  flesh  of  a  deity  or  a  cup  of  wine  into  his 
blood.  No  longer  are  the  fires  of  persecution  kin- 
dled for  those  whose  mathematical  training  has 
made  them  incapable  of  accepting  the  paradox  that 
one  is  three  and  three  are  one.     The  thumbscrew 


16  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

and  the  rack  no  longer  punish  with  a  hell  on  earth 
all  who  have  too  high  an  opinion  of  any  God  whom 
they  can  conceive  as  existing  to  believe  that  he  is  so 
vile  a  monster  as  to  have  prepared  a  hell  beyond  the 
grave  for  any  of  his  own  children.  Even  in  the 
backward  countries  where  democracy  and  religious 
liberty  are  equally  obnoxious  to  the  powers  that 
make  their  rule  a  curse  to  their  subjects,  and  where 
the  miserable  thing  known  as  a  state  church  thrives 
to  the  fullest  extent,  such  concessions  to  the  grow- 
ing decency  of  the  world  have  been  forced  upon  a 
reluctant  priestcraft,  that  its  venom  is  largely  drawn. 
Once  in  a  long  time,  after  years  of  patient  and  in- 
calculably subtle  plotting  for  its  nefarious  end,  it 
may  achieve  a  crowning  infamy,  such  as  the  murder 
of  a  Francisco  Ferrer;  and  even  for  this  triumph 
it  pays  dearly  in  the  end,  by  arousing  against  itself 
the  loathing  of  all  that  is  honorable  on  earth.  In 
the  main,  however,  priestcraft,  growl  as  it  may, 
even  in  the  lands  where  its  strength  for  mischief 
is  greatest,  can  only  suppress  free  speech,  free  press 
and  free  assemblage;  indulge  in  acts  of  petty  per- 
secution, which  arouse  resentment  rather  than  in- 
spire terror;  punish  refusal  to  bow  to  a  religious 
procession  or  indulgence  in  the  expression  of  honest 
opinion  with  fine  or  relatively  brief  imprisonment. 
It  can  annoy,  but  it  can  no  longer  crush. 

Abuse  of  Economic  Power. 

In  a  land  of  democracy,  even  these  last  remnants 
of  the  scourge  of  medievalism  are  wiped  out.  We 
look  with  indignation  and  disgust  at  the  priest- 
ridden  countries  where  a  slavish  population  submits 
to  the  lash  of  bigoted  despots,  and  rejoice  that  our 
lot  is  cast  under  a  freeer  heaven.  Such  religious 
persecution  as  may  still  be  found  among  us  finds 
no  warrant  in  law.  It  consists  of  the  abuse  by  in- 
dividuals of  their  economic  power  over  others.  In 
any  community  where  human  beings  are  found  vile 
enough  to  wish  to  destroy  what  they  can  of  the 
happiness  of  all  who  do  not  pronounce  their  shib- 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  17 

boleth,  they  can  only  resort  to  private  activity  in 
the  way  of  ostracism,  boycott,  blacklisting  and  other 
weapons  of  cowardly  malignance;  and  the  state 
gives  them  no  countenance  in  their  criminal  enter- 
prises. It  is  our  proud  boast  that  in  this  land  of 
freedom  the  state  protects  every  person  in  the  full 
exercise  of  his  right  to  choose  his  own  rehgion,  and 
to  abstain  from  recognition  of  any  other. 

What  a  pity  that  words  are  not  always  equivalent 
to  deeds!  So  curiously  compounded  is  the  human 
mind  that  few  are  capable  of  carrying  a  principle 
to  its  logical  conclusion.  In  some  matters,  a  middle 
ground  is  possible ;  but  there  can  be  no  compromise 
in  cases  where  the  slightest  concession  vitiates  the 
entire  contention  of  one  side  or  the  other.  In  mat- 
ters of  policy  or  of  tactics,  it  is  often  feasible  and 
just  that  each  of  the  contending  parties  should  re- 
cede somewhat  from  its  extreme  demands,  in  order 
to  break  a  deadlock,  or  to  promote  good  feeling; 
and  refusal  to  yield  a  non-essential  point  may  be 
justly  condemned  as  obstinacy.  Even  in  matters  of 
principle,  there  is  no  sacrifice  of  one's  own  sacred 
convictions  in  manifesting  respect  for  the  convic- 
tions of  others.  But  between  manifesting  respect 
for  the  views  of  an  opponent  and  surrendering 
one's  own  conscience  to  him,  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed.  We  may  agree  that  truth  needs  no  artificial 
props,  and  that  nothing  can  be  safer  than  to  allow 
even  the  most  flagrant  error  full  liberty  of  expres- 
sion. This,  however,  is  something  very  different 
from  ourselves  furnishing  the  medium  of  expres- 
sion for  that  which  we  believe  to  be  false  and  per- 
nicious, and  giving  it  the  unmerited  advantage  of 
our  moral  sanction.  When  we  realize  that  ex-^ 
emption  from  taxation  is  as  palpable  a  subsidy  as' 
direct  appropriation  of  funds  for  the  propagation  . 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  exempted  institution,  and 
that  every  taxpayer  must  not  only  bear  a  heavier 
burden  in  consequence  of  such  exemption,  but  must 
also,  with  or  against  his  will,  be  counted  as  part 
of  the  organic  social  whole  which  officially  pro- 


18  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

nounces  in  favor  of  the  merits  of  such  doctrines,  we 
immediately  perceive  that  the  wrong  done  to  the 
citizens  is  not  to  be  measured  in  dollars  and  cents. 
Standing  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  the  state  de- 
liberately chooses  to  follow  the  path  which  leads  in 
the  direction  of  ecclesiastical  domination  of  the  pro- 
testing individual.  It  denies  the  sacred  and  blood- 
bought  principle  of  full  religious  liberty.  It  as- 
serts that  the  private  conscience  of  the  individual 
is  the  property  of  the  community.  This  is  the  theo- 
ry of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  and  is  diametrically 
hostile  to  democracy.  If  the  state  has  the  right  to 
decree  that  its  citizens,  regardless  of  their  desires 
and  convictions,  shall  be  forced  to  contribute  to 
the  support  of  the  church,  it  has  an  equal  right  to 
declare  that  they  shall  give  their  time  as  well  as 
their  money  to  its  upbuilding;  that  they  shall  at- 
tend its  services  and  give  it  the  benefit  of  their 
membership ;  that  they  shall  refrain  from  any  word 
or  deed,  public  or  private,  which  may  tend  to  weaken 
its  influence ;  that  they  shall  submit  all  their  affairs 
to  its  guidance,  and  shall  obey  its  ministers  in  all 
things.  There  is  no  logical  stopping-point  short  of 
this  consistent  application  of  the  doctrine  that  re- 
ligion is  a  matter  of  public  concern.  If  this  doctrine 
be  true,  every  step  away  from  the  Middle  Ages 
has  been  a  ghastly  mistake;  and  we  should  return 
in  all  reverence  and  humility  to  the  ideas  and  ef- 
forts of  Torquemada  and  Simon  de  Montfort.  No 
person  has  a  logical  right  to  condemn  medievalism, 
who  does  not  fully  and  consistently  accept  the  dem- 
^ocratic  principle  that  religion  is  a  strictly  private 
affair  and  that  it  is  in  no  way  the  business  of  the 
state  to  concern  itself  with  the  question  whether 
the  church  is  to  live  or  to  die.  From  the  democratic 
standpoint,  the  church  is  simply  a  voluntary  group 
of  individuals,  who  hold  certain  beliefs  and  aims  in 
common,  and  who  have  the  same  right  as  all  similar 
groups  to  associate  for  the  carrying  out  of  such 
aims,  provided  that  they  do  not  involve  lawlessness 
of  any  kind,  and  to  use  their  own  means  in  propp- 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  19 

gating  their  ideas  among  such  men  and  women  as 
choose  to  lend  a  hearing  to  them.  Like  all  other 
groups  of  law-abiding  men  and  women,  it  is  en- 
titled to  protection  against  lawless  interference  with 
its  peaceful  and  lawful  activities,  whether  the  ma- 
jority of  the  community  may  approve  or  disapprove 
of  its  specific  doctrines ;  and  it  is  bound,  in  its  turn, 
to  refrain  from  interfering  with  the  equal  freedom 
of  other  groups  or  individuals.  In  case  of  a  dis- 
pute, the  state  is  the  proper  umpire,  not  with  refer- 
ence to  the  truth  or  the  wholesomeness  of  the  doc- 
trines professed  by  the  church  or  by  its  opponents, 
but  solely  with  reference  to  the  question  whether 
the  civil  rights  of  either  faction  have  been  infringed 
by  representatives  of  the  contrary  party.  There 
is  no  room  here  for  the  favoritism  inherent  in  tax 
exemption.  This  measure  cannot  satisfy  the  claims 
of  either  democracy  or  medievalism.  It  gives  to 
priestcraft  either  too  much  or  too  little. 

The  Enemy  in  Disguise. 

If  the  church  is  entitled  to  put  its  hands  in  the 
pockets  of  individuals  to  further  its  own  purposes, 
tax  exemption  is  a  cowardly  subterfuge;  and  the 
honorable  way  would  be  to  announce  openly  the 
abrogation  of  religious  liberty  and  democracy,  as 
proven  incompatible  with  the  higher  truth,  and  to* 
require  every  individual,  as  a  lawful  tributary  of 
the  church,  to  contribute  directly  to  its  support.  If 
the  church  has  rightful  authority  over  us  all,  the 
sooner  we  know  it  the  better.  Let  us  then  cease  to 
prate  of  freedom,  and  bow  our  necks  meekly  to 
the  yoke.  Let  it  be  distinctly  recognized  that  the 
priests  are  absolute  masters,  and  that  we  of  the 
common  herd  have  no  human  rights  but  the  duty 
simply  of  passive  submission.  In  snch  a  reversion 
to  the  Dark  Ages,  there  would  at  least  be  the 
merit  that  we  should  at  last  have  done  with  the 
miserable  hypocrisy  which  pays  lip-service  to 
democracy,  while  insidiously  making  the  state  the 
tool  of  ecclesiastical  influences.     We  should  know 


20  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

the  worst,  and  could  choose  whether  to  submit  or 
to  raise  the  banner  of  open  revolt  against  an  un- 
disguised enemy  and  usurping  despot. 

As  this  happens  to  be  the  twentieth  century,  and 
as  the  pet  dream  of  the  Vatican  that  in  some  way 
the  world  may  be  brought  to  return  to  the  degrada- 
tion and  servitude  of  the  tenth  century  is  one  for- 
tunately doomed  to  disappointment,  few  beyond 
an  occasional  Spanish  Jesuit  or  an  irresponsible 
Billy  Sunday  will  regard  the  foregoing  program  as 
possible  or  desirable  of  reahzation.  No  matter  how 
untrue  we  may  be  to  our  democratic  ideals,  we 
know  in  our  inmost  minds  and  hearts  that  the 
progress  and  well-being  of  humanity  depend  on 
their  realization.  We  do  not  propose  to  take  a 
single  step  backward  into  the  darkness  of  the  past, 
or  to  forfeit  any  of  the  liberties  already  won 
through  centuries  of  struggle.  It  is  too  late  in 
the  world's  history  to  dispute  the  right  of  private 
conscience.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to  realize  how 
far  that  right  actually  extends,  and  not  to  be 
cheated  by  a  remnant  of  reactionary  tradition. 
This  being  true,  tax  exemption  is  at  once  doomed 
in  the  court  of  enlightened  morality,  since  we  unite 
in  rejecting  its  logical  implications.  If  priesthood 
has  no  lawful  power  over  our  private  actions,  it 
has  no  right  to  claim  a  subsidy  at  our  expense. 
What  it  may  not  do  directly,  it  has  no  right  to 
do  indirectly.  If  we  may  not  be  compelled  to  a 
full  support  of  the  church,  it  is  nothing  short  of 
larceny  to  require  us  to  render  even  a  partial  as- 
sistance to  its  propaganda.  We  ask  no  discrimina- 
tion against  it,  but  simply  that  it  be  required  to 
exercise  its  functions  at  its  own  cost,  supported  by 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  those,  and  those 
only,  who  believe  in  its  doctrines  and  its  methods, 
and  who  desire  to  help  it.  This  is  simply  common 
honesty,  to  which  the  church,  as  the  professed  ex- 
ponent of  the  higher  ethics,  should  be  the  first  to 
give  its  enthusiastic  adhesion. 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES.  2l 

Paying  Tribute  to  Positive  Evils. 

The  sin  against  private  conscience  becomes  the 
more  glaring,  when  it  is  considered  that  in  the  eyes 
of  many  individual  citizens  the  creeds  and  conduct 
of  certain  at  least  of  the  churches  represent  not 
merely  error,  but  positive  evil.  It  is  irrelevant  to 
assert  that  these  citizens  are  wholly  mistaken. 
None  of  us  being  infallible,  their  opinion  is  entitled 
to  the  same  consideration  as  that  of  anybody  else. 
The  exemption  of  church  property  from  taxation 
forces  them,  as  citizens  of  a  secular  state,  to  pay 
tribute  to  what  their  consciences  condemn  as  or- 
ganized vice.  The  teachings  of  the  Mormon  church 
are  anathema  to  many,  so  much  so  that  in  more 
than  one  otherwise  law-abiding  community  mis- 
sionaries of  this  faith  are  even  denied  a  hearing, 
and  are  subject  to  persecution,  which  naturally 
strengthens  them  in  the  conviction  that  they  are  suf- 
fering for  righteousness'  sake.  Yet  the  Mormon 
church  is  a  beneficiary  of  tax  exemption,  no  less 
than  any  other  Christian  sect;  and  every  citizen 
must  pay  a  higher  tax,  in  order  to  put  money  into 
the  treasury  of  this  gigantic  fraud  and  to  enable 
it  to  carry  on  its  propaganda  more  fruitfully. 
The  Roman  Catholic  confessional,  its  celibate  priest- 
hood, its  non-producing  and  parasitical  monks  and 
nuns,  are  held  in  holy  horror  by  many  conscientious 
Protestants,  who  look  upon  these  features  as  con- 
ducive to  vice  and  as  reeking  with  immorality. 
Every  one  of  these  Protestants,  however,  is  forced 
by  the  state  to  present  the  Roman  Catholic  church 
with  a  portion  of  his  earnings,  and  thus  to  provide  it 
with  the  means  of  increasing  its  power  for  evil.  In 
like  manner,  the  zealous  Catholic,  who  is  certain  that 
Protestantism  is  dragging  millions  of  souls  to  hell, 
and  who  earnestly  believes  that  married  pastors  sin 
against  God  and  lead  others  away  on  the  road  to 
perdition,  must  help  pay  for  the  perpetuation  of 
this  ministry  of  Satan.  The  liberal  sects,  which 
thunder  against  the  villainy  of  creeds  that  drive 


22  EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES. 

human  beings  mad  with  despair  by  visions  of  an 
imaginary  hell  and  fiery  devils,  cannot  protect  their 
adherents  from  being  compelled  to  enrich  the  pur- 
veyors of  these  hateful  and  injurious  dogmas.  Nor 
can  the  orthodox  denominations,  on  the  other  hand, 
escape  from  the  outrageous  condition  which  re- 
quires their  members  to  pay  for  the  circulation  of 
Unitarian  and  Universalist  teachings,  which  they 
regard  as  the  most  hideous  and  soul-destroying 
blasphemy.  In  the  logrolling  attempt  to  give  every 
hog  a  chance  at  the  trough,  the  only  result  is  that 
nobody's  conscience  is  free  from  violation. 

Touching  the  Pocket  Nerve. 

As  for  the  vast  number  of  the  imchurched,  they 
might  as  well  have  no  civic  rights  whatever,  for 
all  the  attention  that  is  paid  to  their  sincere  con- 
victions. In  defiance  of  the  elementary  right  of 
religious  liberty,  so  sedulously  professed  by  poli- 
tician and  priest,  millions  of  our  citizens  are  in- 
formed that  if  they  are  not  members  of  some 
church,  and  so  getting  their  share  of  access  to  the 
swag,  it  is  their  own  fault;  and  that  they  have  no 
right  to  complain  of  the  robbery  of  which  they  are 
victims.  Since  it  is  impossible  to  apply  direct 
force,  in  order  to  make  every  individual  become  a 
churchman,  the  next  best  ecclesiastical  scheme  is  to 
soak  him  in  the  pocketbook  for  not  doing  so.  In 
other  words,  the  state  is  used  as  a  tool  to  force 
men  and  women  into  the  church  on  the  ground  of 
pecuniary  self-interest.  The  proposition  is  a  bru- 
tally plain  one.  If  they  join  the  church,  they  get 
something  for  the  money  stolen  from  them  in  the 
shape  of  increased  taxation;  if  they  remain  out- 
side, the  added  tax  is  a  dead  loss.  The  idea  is 
worthy  of  corrupt  political  hirelings  of  a  degenerate 
church,  which  is  out  for  nothing  but  profit.  If 
this  is  modern  Christianity,  it  is  fit  only  for  per- 
sons dead  to  all  sense  of  honor  and  of  shame. 

If  all  institutions  or  groups  of  like-minded  in- 
dividuals received  the  benefit  of  tax  exemption,  a 


feXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  23 

better  defense  might  be  made  of  the  practice,  al- 
though it  would  still  involve  an  injustice  toward 
those  who  are  perfectly  good  and  useful  citizens, 
in  spite  of  their  choice  not  to  participate  in  the 
affairs  of  any  organization.  But  the  favoritism 
extended  to  bodies  of  a  religious  nature  is  at  once 
invidious  and  unjust.  While  the  whole  theory  of 
our  government  is  hostile  to  special  privilege,  the 
church  arrogates  to  itself  the  right  to  be  made  an 
exception,  and  to  become  a  particular  pet.  It 
ardently  craves  parasitism,  and  is  not  denied  its 
wish.  When  other  groups  of  citizens  meet  to- 
gether to  consult  over  their  common  affairs,  or  to 
engage  in  common  activities,  they  are  not  pauper- 
ized by  the  community.  If  they  occupy  land  and 
build  upon  it,  they  pay  their  share  of  the  public 
burden,  based  on  the  property  they  possess,  just 
like  any  other  person  or  persons,  and  do  not  sell 
their  self-respect  for  the  sake  of  saving  a  few 
dollars.  It  remains  for  the  one  institution  which 
constantly  puts  on  airs  of  superior  virtue,  and 
which  expects  to  take  front  seats  on  all  occasions 
and  to  have  everybody  kowtow  to  it,  to  come  with 
the  beggar's  whine,  and  to  demand  charity  of  the 
state.  Its  dishonesty  is  only  excelled  by  its  im- 
pudence. 

Churches  Not  Pliblic  Institutions. 

The  church  cannot  be  heard  to  claim  that  it  is 
a  public  or  a  quasi-public  institution.  It  exercises 
no  public  function  of  any  description  which  should 
warrant  granting  it  immunity  from  the  general 
laws  binding  on  all  members  of  the  community. 
Its  mission  is  to  preach  something  which  it  calls 
the  gospel.  By  its  own  insistent  declaration,  it 
derives  its  authority  to  teach  solely  from  the  being 
whom  it  worships  as  its  deity.  It  is  not  in  any 
sense  commissioned  by  the  state  or  by  the  people, 
and  asks  no  permission  of  either  to  carry  out  its 
purposes.  Its  members  are  held  together  by  a 
body  of  doctrine  accepted  by  them  all;  and  they 


24  EXEM1>TING   THE   CHURCHES. 

maintain  a  form  of  worship  which  they  count 
pleasing  in  the  sight  of  their  God.  If  they  are 
mistaken,  it  is  labor  and  devotion  thrown  away;  if 
they  are  right,  they  will  be  individually  and  col- 
lectively rewarded  by  heaven,  either  in  this  life  or 
in  some  other.  All  this  is  strictly  their  own  busi- 
ness and  that  of  their  deity.  It  does  not  concern 
the  state  in  any  way  whatever.  The  state  has  no 
means  of  knowing  whether  they  are  right  or 
wrong,  and  is  not  being  served  in  any  way  by  their 
ceremonials.  Its  work  and  theirs  do  not  lie  par- 
allel in  a  single  respect.  The  further  function  of 
the  church,  as  a  church,  is  simply  to  seek  to  con- 
vert others  to  the  body  of  dogma  which  it  puts 
forward  as  the  message  of  God  to  man  and  the 
revelation  of  the  divine  will.  Here,  again,  the  state 
is  in  no  way  concerned,  provided  the  alleged  divine 
will  is  not  an  incitement  to  any  form  of  lawless- 
ness or  crime.  If  the  attempt  at  proselytism  fails, 
the  community  is  in  no  way  affected;  and  if  it 
succeeds,  the  state  receives  no  possible  benefit,  and 
owes  the  church  nothing  for  the  putting  forth  of 
its  activities.  As  God  is  the  only  possible  benefi- 
ciary of  the  church's  efforts,  it  is  for  him  to  pay 
its  taxes*,  if  it  is  itself  unable  to  do  so.  The  state 
is  under  no  moral  compulsion  to  discharge  his  ob- 
ligations. If  he  does  not  see  fit  to  come  to  the 
rescue  of  his  needy  representatives,  their  conclu- 
sion must  logically  be  that  he  expects  them  to  pay 
their  own  bills.  The  church,  like  every  other  or- 
ganized or  unorganized  group  of  human  beings, 
receives  certain  definite  and  regular  services  from 
the  state,  which  cost  money  to  render,  and  which 
create  a  debt  just  as  palpable  as  the  debt  to  the 
carpenter  who  builds  the  meeting  house  or  the  coal- 


*Even  by  a  miracle  if  necessary.  It  is  recorded  that 
when  Jesus  was  called  upon  to  pay  taxes  in  Capernaum 
(Matt,  xvii)  he  made  no  argument  for  exemption,  but 
straightway  dispatched  his  disciple  Peter  after  the 
didrachma,  with  which,  it  is  assumed,  the  debt  to  the 
community  was  discharged. 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES.  25 

man  who  furnishes  fuel  to  keep  it  warm.  If  the 
church  had  any  adequate  conception  of  common 
honesty,  it  would  pay  its  taxes  without  a  whimper 
and  as  a  matter  of  course^,  just  as  it  pays  its  gas 
bills  or  settles  any  of  its  accounts  with  individuals. 
It  does  not  inform  its  private  creditors  that  it 
should  be  exempt  from  payment  for  services  ren- 
dered, just  because  it  is  a  religious  body;  and  it 
would  be  given  small  shrift  by  any  court,  should  it 
attempt  to  evade  such  claims  on  such  a  ground.  As 
little  has  it  a  moral  right  to  take  from  the  public 
without  returning  an  equivalent  in  material 
remuneration. 

The  No-Profit  Sophistry. 

A  weak  attempt  to  justify  church  graft  consists 
in  the  affirmation  that  it  is  engaged  in  purely  al- 
truistic labors,  and  is  not  a  profitmaking  institu- 
tion. It  is  not  engaged  in  any  openly  commercial 
undertaking.  Salvation  is  free,  and  all  are  wel- 
come to  its  inestimable  blessings.  The  sophistry 
and  lack  of  ingenuousness  which  make  it  possible 
to  present  such  an  argument  with  a  straight  face 
can  scarcely  be  characterized  in  parliamentary 
language.  It  fairly  reeks  with  self-evident  fal- 
lacies.    First  of  all,  if  the  church  chooses  to  run 


"Not  that  the  church  always  regards  the  payment 
of  its  private  debt  as  "a  matter  of  course."  The  Rev. 
Dr.  Huntington  of  Grace  Episcopal  Church,  New  York 
city,  and  William  R.  Stewart,  one  of  the  church  war- 
dens, in  1908  asked  an  architect,  J.  Stewart  Barney  by 
name,  to  prepare  plans  for  extensive  and  expensive 
alterations  in  the  church  building.  The  architect  did 
the  work  in  good  faith  and  to  the  full  satisfaction  of  the 
church,  but  was  deliberately  cheated  out  of  his  pay  on 
the  pretext  that,  though  the  church  wanted  the  work 
done,  knew  and  approved  of  its  being  done,  received  and 
was  fully  pleased  with  the  benefits  of  it,  yet  it  had  not 
technically  authorized  its  pastor  and  warden  to  give  the 
order!  Grace  church  is  one  of  the  wealthiest  religious 
bodies  in  New  York.  Such  is  Christian  honor  and 
morality,  the  exalted  character  of  which  is  supposed  to 
lay  the  community  under  a  burden  of  gratitude  toward 
the  church  1 


26  EXEMf>TING   THE    CHURCHES. 

its  affairs  on  a  non-profit  basis,  that  is  strictly  its 
own  business,  and  does  not  concern  the  state  in 
any  way.  If  it  has  no  property,  it  escapes  tax- 
ation as  a  matter  of  course,  like  the  individual  who 
has  nothing.  But  if  it  is  able  to  own  property,  it 
immediately  incurs  a  specific  obligation  to  the 
state,  which  is  totally  independent  of  the  use  it 
makes  of  its  property.  The  man  who  retires  from 
business,  and  lives  on  his  income,  is  not  thence- 
forward exempted  from  all  taxation,  because  he  is 
no  longer  making  money.  Nor  does  it  serve  as  an 
excuse  that  he  is  making  no  profitable  investments, 
but  is  using  up  his  bare  capital,  and  is  spending  his 
time  and  part  of  his  means  in  philanthropic  work. 
In  spite  of  all  this,  he  is  a  member  of  society,  and 
must  meet  his  obligations  as  such,  whenever  the 
tax  collector  comes  around.  The  same  is  true  of 
an  organization.  The  church  takes  up  just  as 
much  space,  receives  as  much  social  protection  and 
as  much  benefit  from  every  civic  improvement, 
whether  it  is  making  money  or  not.  The  state 
does  not  forbid  it  to  make  money  or  to  engage  in 
commercial  enterprises;  and  its  failure  to  do  so  is 
purely  voluntary,  and  is  entirely  irrelevant  to  the 
discharge  of  its  pecuniary  obligation  to  organized 
society.  Its  privileges  may  be  free;  but  what  does 
that  mean  to  those  who  count  them  as  worthless? 
It  is  a  cheap  evasion  of  responsibility  to  offer  in 
lieu  of  the  specific  payment  of  a  debt,  to  render  the 
creditor  some  form  of  alleged  service  for  which 
he  has  no  possible  use,  and  which  means  nothing 
whatever  to  him.  This  remains  true,  even  if  the 
unbeliever  is  under  the  spell  of  error,  and  ought 
to  appreciate  the  blessings  of  religious  counsel. 
The  dance  may  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  forms 
of  art;  but  if  Vernon  Castle  offered  to  discharge  a 
monetary  obligation  to  a  blind  creditor  by  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  most  wonderful  Terpsichorean  evo- 
lutions in  his  presence,  there  would  be  no  payment 
of  the  debt,  even  though  the  artistic  performance 
might  be  intrinsically  worth  far  more  than  the  sum 


feXEMPTING  THt   CHURCHES.  if 

owed,  and  would  be  readily  so  appraised  by  all 
who  had  their  eyes.  No  matter  how  valuable  relig- 
ious exercises  may  be  in  themselves,  nor  how 
much  satisfaction  they  may  give  those  who  believe"*^ 
in  them,  the  civil  rights  of  the  unbeliever  remain 
on  a  par  with  those  of  the  believer;  and  it  re- 
mains true  that  the  offer  by  the  church  of  un- 
desired  services  can  in  no  way  constitute  an  ob- 
ligation. Let  the  church  be  supported  by  those 
who  accept  its  offer,  and  who  desire  to  profit  by 
its  privileges,  such  as  they  are.  This  remains  no 
affair  of  other  persons,  or  of  the  state.  The  bene- 
fits  of  religion  are  subjective  and  strictly  personal;  ^ 
and  the  state  is  in  no  way  qualified  to  pass  on  their 
value.  To  say  that  non-churchmen  should  help  pay 
the  expenses  of  the  church  because  they  can  be- 
come churchmen  if  they  wish  to  do  so,  is  to  say 
that  a  debt  can  be  contracted  without  a  consid- 
eration. 

The  Church's  Commercial  Aspects. 

It  is  not  strictly  true,  however,  that  the  church 
is  in  no  sense  a  profit-making  institution,  or  ^ 
that  it  has  no  commercial  aspects.  If  the  church 
were  not  successful  in  a  business  sense,  it  could 
not  accumulate  property  or  capital,  and  would 
not  have  to  worry  about  exemption.  There  are 
more  ways  of  making  profits  than  by  straight 
buying  and  selling.  An  organization  which  is 
able  to  play  on  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  super- 
stitions and  sentiments,  the  beliefs  and  enthu- 
siasms of  its  members  and  of  those  who  come 
under  its  spell,  and  thereby  to  secure  the  means 
of  buying  land,  erecting  buildings  and  paying  ^ 
current  expenses,  cannot  honestly  pretend  to  be 
a  purely  benevolent  society.  Let  its  teachings 
be  true  or  false,  good  or  bad,  the  principle  is 
precisely  the  same.  It  receives  money  from  in- 
dividuals, who  believe  that  they  receive,  in 
spiritual,  to  some  extent  in  intellectual  and  es- 
thetic and  even  in  physical  values,  an  adequate 


28  EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES. 

return  for  what  they  pay.  This  is  a  plain  busi- 
ness proposition,  whether  the  value  is  really 
there  or  not.  The  fact  that  no  definite  price  is 
fixed  for  the  services,  but  that  payment  is  at 
least  nominally  voluntary,  is  wholly  irrelevant. 
A  restaurant  conducted  on  the  liberal  plan  of 
"eat  what.,you  like,  and  pay  what  you  think  it  is 
worth,"  would  be  no  less  a  business  enterprise, 
and  its  property  taxable  as  such.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  business  men  in  some  lines  have  actually 
been  known  to  follow  a  similar  plan.  How 
successful  the  church  has  been  in  this  regard  may 
be  seen  by  the  enormous  wealth  which  various 
church  corporations  have  acquired,  always  under 
the  claim  of  being  non-profit-making  institutions. 
Trinity  Church  corporation  of  New  York  owns 
hundreds  of  houses,  and  pays  taxes  on  some  $15,- 
000,000  worth  of  property,  which  it  cannot  deny 
that  it  uses  for  purely  commercial  purposes,  be- 
sides its  immense  holdings  of  valuable  land  and 
buildings  claimed  to  be  used  by  it  only  for  wor- 
ship and  hence  exempt  from  taxation,  amounting 
to  approximately  an  equal  value.  Where  did 
Trinity  church,  which  keeps  up  the  sham  of  rep- 
resenting the  faith  of  the  poor  Nazarene  re- 
former, who  ''had  not  where  to  lay  his  head," 
and  who  lived  mainly  by  hand-to-mouth  charity, 
get  the  means  of  purchasing  some  $30,000,000 
worth  of  property,  if  it  is  a  purely  non-profit- 
making  institution,  which  has  honestly  followed 
its  alleged  master's  express  injunction  to  "take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow,"  and  to  "lay  not  up 
treasure  on  earth"?  Exemption  on  that  part  of 
its  property  used  "exclusively  for  worship,"  by 
setting  free  a  large  proportion  of  the  moneys  ac- 
cruing to  it  from  its  members  and  benefactors, 
which  would  otherwise  have  been  used  in  paying 
/  its  debt  to  the  community,  enabled  it  to  use  its 
'  surplus  in  investments  which  were  of  a  directly 
commercial  nature.    One  hand  washes  the  other, 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  29 

and  the  state  is  the  dupe  of  the  pious  legerde- 
main. 

A  Strictly  Cash  Business. 

Even  the  religious  and  ceremonial  features  of 
the  church  are  not  free  from  commercialism. 
The  Romain  Catholic  church  represents  the  ex- 
treme example  of  the  moneymaking  aspect  of 
religion.  Its  audacity  in  pretending  to  deserve 
consideration  as  an  organization  devoted  purely 
to  worship,  and  in  no  sense  to  profit,  is  beyond 
the  power  of  words  to  characterize  as  it  de- 
serves. The  dupe  of  papistry  pays,  in  good,  hard, 
current  coin,  for  all  that  he  gets,  and  for  a  great 
deal  more  than  the  actual  value  that  he  receives. 
For  the  pious  and  credulous  Catholic,  life  is  one 
long  litany  of  "pay,  pay,  pay,"  wherever  the 
priest  and  the  church  are  concerned.  The  shout- 
ing Methodist  may  be  satisfied  to  yell  that  "sal- 
vation is  free,"  and  to  take  a  chance  on  the  col- 
lection as  a  means  of  defraying  the  high  cost  of 
delivery  on  the  "free"  article;  but  the  Roman 
Catholic  priest  knows  a  better  trick.  It  is  strict- 
ly a  cash  business  with  him.  The  Catholic  be- 
liever must  pay  his  little  ten  cents  every  Sunday 
for  the  "privilege"  of  sitting  on  a  hard  bench, 
and  listening  to  a  ceremony  very  little  of  which 
is  intelligible  to  him.  In  order  to  catch  him  in 
all  the  relations  of  life,  and  to  entangle  him  in 
a  network  from  which  there  is  not  even  a 
momentary  escape,  the  astute  hierarchy  has  de- 
vised a  series  of  no  less  than  seven  sacraments. 
So  cleverly  is  the  scheme  arranged  for  the  trap- 
ping of  credulous  flies  that  a  consistent  Catholic 
can  take  scarcely  an  important  step  in  life  with- 
out incidentally  paying  tribute  in  some  form  to 
the  church,  the  most  monumental  beggar  history 
has  known.  Every  real  or  pretended  service  of 
the  church  has  its  price,  and  no  evasion  is  toler- 
ated. The  confessional  and  the  system  of  pen- 
ance   are    finelv    constructed    to    wheedle     or 


30  EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 

frighten  more  money  out  of  the  ignorant  and 
susceptible.  The  greedy  priest  hovers  about  the 
sickbed,  ready  to  take  any  possible  advantage  of 
human  weakness.  The  patient  or  his  relatives 
may  be  reduced  to  a  sufficient  state  of  imbecility 
to  seek  the  aid  of  the  church's  pretended  miracle 
system  or  of  some  of  its  holy  relics.  If  recovery 
seems  hopeless,  there  is  always  the  pleasing  pos- 
sibility of  coaxing  or  bulldozing  the  half  dead 
and  mentally  decayed  victim  to  make  a  will  in 
favor  of  the  church,  no  matter  what  cruel  and 
unjust  deprivations  are  thereby  imposed  on  help- 
less dependents.  What  would  be  baseness  in 
any  other  human  being,  becomes  transmuted 
into  the  most  exalted  virtue  on  the  part  of  the 
priest;  and  any  graft  is  permissible  and  com- 
mendable, from  the  Romish  viewpoint,  if  the 
church  is  the  beneficiary.  An  immense  traffic  is 
carried  on  in  all  sorts  of  ''consecrated"  objects 
for  the  greatest  variety  of  purposes.  Even  at 
death,  the  church  does  not  relax  its  hold,  but  has 
concocted  the  preposterous  fable  of  purgatory,  in 
order  to  keep  its  fooPsh  dupes  continually  paying 
out  money  for  which  nothing  whatever  is  given 
in  return.  Then  there  are  all  sorts  of  indulgences 
and  dispensations  for  those  able  and  willing  to 
pay  for  them,  besides  the  practical  coercion  by 
which,  under  the  guise  of  voluntary  beneficence, 
the  slave  of  superstition  is  continually  mulcted 
for  various  alleged  needs  of  the  church. 

Free-will  Offerings  Not  Always  Voluntary. 

The  Protestant  churches  adopt  a  diiTerent 
method,  not  quite  so  successful  in  dragging  the 
hard-earned  dimes  out  of  the  worn  purse  of  the 
poor  washerwoman  or  in  stealing  the  coppers 
oflF  the  eyes  of  the  corpse,  but  reasonably  effi- 
cacious. They,  too,  to  at  least  some  extent  make 
merchandise  out  of  "the  house  of  the  Lord." 
The  pew  rent  system  is  as  plain  a  business  affair 
as  the  buying  of  seats  in  a  theatre.     The  collec- 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  31 

tion  is  the  most  important  item  in  almost  every 
Protestant  religious  service.  It  is  nominally 
voluntary,  but  there  are  numerous  w^ays  of  in- 
flicting acute  mental  discomfort  on  those  who 
do  not  come  up  liberally  *'to  the  help  of  the 
Lord."  By  skillfully  playing  on  the  emotions  of 
the  congregation,  and  if  possible  inducing  in 
them  a  state  of  hysteria,  an  astute  moneyseeker 
like  Simpson  of  the  Christian  Alliance  or  Billy 
Sunday  of  the  ''gutter  gospel"  can  induce  a 
scared,  madly  excited,  hypnotized  crowed  to  help 
the  Lord  to  the  extent  of  thousands  of  dollars, 
none  of  v^hich  can  be  recovered  by  the  victims 
on  the  next  day,  vv^hen  they  have  become  sobered 
and  ashamed  of  their  fit  of  spiritual  intoxication. 
And  the  church  has  the  phenomenal  impudence 
to  boast  that  the  money  thus  tricked  out  of  per- 
sons reduced  to  a  frenzy  in  which  they  did  not 
know  what  they  were  doing  was  "voluntarily" 
donated !  Large  funds  are  also  secured  by  this 
"non-commercial  institution"  through  church 
fairs,  grab  bags,  special  entertainments  and  other 
devices  which  are  held  to  be  decidedly  com- 
mercial when  carried  on  by  worldly  people,  but 
which  become  mysteriously  sanctified  when 
conducted  for  the  benefit  of  the  church. 

The  claim  that  the  church,  as  a  non-com- 
mercial institution,  is  entitled  to  the  kind  chap- 
eronage  of  the  state  in  the  shape  of  exemption 
from  the  obligation  of  paying  its  honest  debts, 
besides  being  bad  and  invalid  in  itself,  has  not 
even  the  poor  merit  of  resting  on  a  basis  of  fact. 
Moreover,  since  there  are  plenty  of  other  non- 
commercial institutions,  which  pay  taxes  like  any 
other  concern,  no  reason  is  given  why  the  church 
should  be  the  one  special  pet.  Social  and  recre-, 
ative  institutions  are  not  conducted  for  profit,  nor ' 
are  Socialistic  or  Anarchistic  groups,  the  prop- 
erty of  which  is  not  exempt  from  taxation.  All 
of  these,  like  the  church,  meet  the  desires  or 
gratify  the  tastes  of  individuals,  and  are  of  the 


32  EXEMPTING    THE   CHURCHES. 

greatest  subjective  value  to  those  to  whom  they 
appeal,  while  worthless  to  everybody  else,  and 
in  no  way  connected  with  the  legitimate  func- 
tions of  society  in  its  collective  aspect.  Hence 
none  of  them  can  justly  make  the  slightest  claim 
to  be  exempted  from  the  duty  of  "rendering  to 
Caesar  that  which  is  Caesar's." 

Toward  the  Concentration  of  Wealth. 

Exemption  of  church  property  from  taxation  is 
a  deliberate  invitation  to  the  concentration  of 
wealth,  in  opposition  to  its  equitable  distribution. 

While  social  reformers  are  straining  every  nerve 
to  devise  and  apply  effective  methods  for  the  break- 
ing down  of  monopoly,  the  policy  of  favoritism  to- 
ward ecclesiastical  bodies  is  building  up  the  evil 
in  its  most  aggravated  form.  If  the  churches  really 
regarded  themselves  as  simply  trustees  of  the  re- 
sources placed  in  their  hands  by  private  benevolence 
and  state  favor,  and  spent  all  or  practically  all 
that  they  received  for  the  benefit  of  humanity, 
some  defense,  though  even  then  an  insufficient  one, 
might  be  made  of  the  practice  of  tax  exemption. 
The  tendency,  however,  is  wholly  in  the  reverse 
direction.  The  more  the  churches  receive,  the  more 
property  they  accumulate,  heedless  of  the  stem 
watming  of  Isaiah,  the  iconoclastic  Hebrew  re- 
former, who,  according  to  tradition,  was  sawn 
asunder  for  offending  the  priests  and  the  king  by 
the  heretical  doctrine  that  Jehovah  "would  have 
mercy  and  not  sacrifice"  and  preferred  social  justice 
to  religious  ceremonialism.  "Woe,"  cried  the  pro- 
phet, "unto  them  that  join  house  to  house,  that  lay 
field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  room,  and  ye  be  made 
to  dwell  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  land !" 

It  needs  no  expert  knowledge  of  political  economy 
^  to  comprehend  how  readily  untaxed  property  can 
be  made  to  multiply.  Sharing  all  the  social  ad- 
vantages, and  bearing  none  of  the  social  burden, 
its  owners  can  bide  their  time  through  all  the  ups 
and  downs  of  the  market,  sure  to  gain  in  the  end. 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  33 

All  things  come  to  him  who  is  in  a  position  to 
wait  longest.  While  the  possessions  of  others  are 
automatically  limited  by  the  effective  lien  placed 
on  them  by  the  taxing  power,  the  churches  can 
placidly  increase  their  holdings  to  their  hearts'  con- 
tent. In  the  long  run,  they  can  outbid  competitors, 
who  must  add  the  cost  of  annual  taxation  to  the 
original  payment  for  the  property  acquired.  Safe 
in  the  evasion  of  their  civic  duties,  they  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  grow  richer  and  richer.  Pay- 
ing no  taxes,  they  become  independent  of  the  state, 
an  imperium  in  imperio,  a  power  rivaling  that  of 
organized  society  itself. 

Wealthy  Churches,  Impoverished  People. 

No  class  in  the  community  can  grow  steadily  ^ 
richer  without  causing  other  classes  to  grow  rela-  ' 
tively  poorer.  The  two  tendencies  are  halves  of  the 
same  process.  If  a  larger  and  larger  percentage  of 
the  land  falls  into  the  possession  of  a  given  institu- 
tion, it  is  mathematically  demonstrable  that  a 
greater  number  of  individuals  must  remain  land- 
less and  homeless,  and  that  the  cost  of  access  to 
the  remaining  land  in  the  community  must  become 
greater  and  greater,  making  it  harder  and  harder 
for  the  common  citizen  to  live.  Untaxed  property 
in  any  community  adds  heavily  to  the  common 
burden. 

That  this  is  not  mere  speculation  may  be  seen 
by  a  glance  at  history,  where  it  will  be  found  in 
land  after  land,  and  in  century  after  century,  that 
favoritism  to  the  church,  wherever  tolerated,  has 
wrought  incalculable  evil  to  the  people,  largely 
through  the  heavy  accumulation  of  wealth  by  the 
ecclesiastical  body.  So  unendurable  has  the  condi- 
tion become  that  in  country  after  country  the  only 
possible  relief  was  found  to  be  through  wholesale 
confiscation,  thus  settling  accounts  at  one  stroke. 
Thus,  Henry  VIII  of  England  became  a  reformer  in 
spite  of  himself,  and  though  personally  a  dishonest 
tyrant  with  few  if  any  redeeming  features,  at  least 


34  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

conferred  a  lasting  blessing  on  the  people  of  Eng- 
land by  forcing  the  church  parasites  to  disgorge 
enormous  values  which  had  become  means  of  the 
most  intolerable  oppression.  France  and  Portugal, 
though  for  centuries  staunch  Catholic  countries, 
found  the  wealth  of  the  church  and  the  impoverish- 
ment of  the  people  to  go  regularly  hand  in  hand, 
and  were  finally  forced,  in  decreeing  the  separation 
of  church  and  state,  to  adopt  stringent  measures  for 
breaking  the  monopolistic  power  of  the  hierarchy. 
The  Philippine  insurrection  against  Spain  was 
largely  an  uprising  of  an  outraged  people  against 
the  priests  and  friars,  who  were  coming  to  own 
everything,  and  to  reduce  the  population  to  a  state 
of  vassalage.  The  part  played  by  the  priesthood 
of  Mexico  in  the  impoverishment  of  the  people, 
while  the  church  revenues  waxed  greater  and 
greater,  is  familiar  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  causes  which  have  brought  that  unhappy  land 
to  a  state  of  chaos  and  wholesale  bloodshed. 

Some  Results  of  the  System. 

Like  tendencies  are  to  be  observed  as  a  result  of 
exemption  of  church  property  from  taxation,  wher- 
ever the  false  principle  is  in  vogue,  the  only  variance 
being  one  of  degree.  In  Montreal,  for  instance,  we 
have  a  striking  example  of  the  effect  of  wholesale 
exemptions.  In  1913,  when  the  evil  had  reached  its 
height,  and  relief  was  imperatively  demanded,  the 
church  had  already  come  to  own  no  less  than  one- 
fourth  of  the  real  estate  in  the  community.  This 
was  simply  the  logical  outcome  of  favoring  this 
class  of  landholders  at  the  expense  of  all  others. 
The  Montreal  provisions  were  unusually  lax,  thus 
hastening  the  inevitable  result;  but  they  did  not 
differ  in  principle  from  those  of  the  American  states 
which  favor  monopoly  by  leaving  church  property 
untaxed.  The  case  of  Trinity  Church  of  New  York 
citv,  already  cited,  with  an  accumulation  of  about 
$30,000,000  in  property,  is  ominous  of  the  fearful 
possibilities   of   an   indefinite   continuance   of   the 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  35 

policy  of  permitting  one  group  of  citizens  to  prey 
upon  all  the  rest.  The  one  missionary  society  named 
for  St.  Paul  the  Apostle,  in  the  same  city,  owns 
not  less  than  fifteen  lots  of  land,  appraised  at  vari- 
ous amounts  from  $2500  to  $11,000  each,  and  is  still 
adding  to  its  accumulations.  It  would  be  hard  to 
conceive  of  a  more  unwholesome  state  of  affairs; 
and  the  process  continues  with  unabated  celerity. 
The  peril  against  which  England  found  it  necessary 
to  provide  in  the  Statute  of  Mortmain  is  a  very 
present  one.  If  church  property  is  to  be  perma- 
nently exempted  from  taxation,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
see  how  an  enormous  percentage  of  all  the  property 
of  the  community  may  ultimately  come  to  be  tied  up 
in  the  hands  of  these  wealthy  ecclesiastical  cor- 
porations which  have  already  made  so  substantial  a 
beginning  in  this  direction.  We  are  jeopardizing 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  future  generations. 

In  this  connection,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
nothing  is  stationary.  The  minds  of  men  change 
from  age  to  age;  and  that  which  appears  to  one 
generation  to  be  the  most  rootedly  established  truth, 
is  in  the  course  of  a  few  decades  completely  re- 
jected. Religion  is  no  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  The  Greek,  the  Roman,  the  ancient  Norse 
gods  have  had  their  day;  and  not  a  worshiper  re- 
mains on  earth  to  bow  before  their  altars.  Chris- 
tianity may  likewise  pass ;  already  its  active  devotees 
form  but  a  minority  of  the  population.  And  if 
Christianity  as  a  whole  may  ultimately  relinquish 
the  field  altogether,  it  is  still  more  unlikely  that  the 
tenets  of  any  particular  sect  known  today  should 
hold  permanent  sway  over  the  minds  and  con- 
sciences of  sincere  men  and  women.  We  are  allow- 
ing hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  of  property  to 
be  insidiously  withdrawn  from  the  community,  and 
tied  up  in  the  hands  of  great  corporations  which 
in  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  will  be  the  mere  shells  of 
soulless  organizations.  We  are  making  it  possible 
for  them  to  become  our  economic  masters,  long 
after  men  and  women  shall  have  ceased  to  find 


36  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

spiritual  nutriment  in  any  part  of  their  creeds.  By 
what  species  of  casuistry  does  any  person  think  it 
possible  to  put  this  forward  as  sane  public  policy? 

"O  judgment,  thou  art  fled  to  brutish  beasts, 
And  men  have  lost  their  reason !" 

Truth  of  the  Doctrine  Is  No  Test. 

If  the  argument  has  thus  far  been  conducted 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  outsider,  it  is  not  in- 
tended to  imply  that  the  case  against  the  exemp- 
tion of  church  property  from  taxation  rests  in  any 
fundamental  way  on  the  assumption  that  the  teach- 
ings of  Christianity  or  even  the  creeds  of  the 
churches  are  false.  On  the  contrary,  every  most 
material  ground  for  condemnation  of  the  practice  in 
question  would  continue  to  be  valid,  even  if  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  doctrine  were  assumed  as  a 
starting-point.  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,'* 
is  the  express  utterance  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus 
by  his  biographer.  This  obviously  implies  the 
principle  of  absolute  religious  liberty,  so  far  as  the 
secular  state  is  concerned.  The  Christ  of  the  New 
Testament  disclaimed  the  intention  of  constrain- 
ing the  actions  of  unwilling  followers.  Even  the 
man  who  had  resolved  to  betray  him  was  suffered 
to  go  forth  in  peace  with  the  exhortation:  "What 
thou  doest,  do  quickly."  In  no  part  of  his  teaching 
is  there  warrant  for  religious  domination  of  the 
state,  or  for  control  over  the  private  actions  of  in- 
dividuals. The  only  penalty  for  disobedience  was 
withdrawal  from  the  privilege  of  communion  with 
him.  Even  the  passage  of  dubious  authenticity 
which  smacks  most  of  ecclesiastical  judgment  of 
the  individual,  goes  no  farther  than  to  prescribe 
excommunication  from  the  fellowship  of  the  saints. 
"Let  him  be  to  thee  as  the  Gentile  and  the  publican," 
involves  at  most  no  more  than  an  injunction  to 
withdraw  personal  companionship  from  the  un- 
worthy. It  is  by  man's  own  conscience  and  by  the 
judgment  of  God  in  another  world  that  Jesus  ex- 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHUHCHES.  37 

pects  evildoing  to  be  punished.    It  never  occurs  to 
him  to  make  religion  a  state  affair. 

Nay,  it  is  possible  to  come  closer  home  to  the 
present  subject.  Unlike  the  church,  which  mutters 
"Lord,  Lord,"  but  departs  from  his  teaching  and 
example  whenever  its  convenience  is  promoted  by 
doing  so,  Jesus  decided  this  very  question  on  the 
side  of  honesty  and  justice.  When  this  exact  issue 
was  placed  before  him,  he  not  only  paid  his  taxes, 
but  plainly  declared  the  duty  of  so  doing,  even 
though  the  existing  government  was  one  imposed 
by  aliens.  That,  unlike  the  church  which  mocks 
truth  by  misusing  his  name  to  cover  its  utter  antag- 
onism to  all  that  was  vital  in  his  teachings,  he  was 
so  poor  that  he  must  needs  work  a  miracle  in  order 
to  obtain  the  tribute  money,  in  no  way  touches  the 
point  at  issue.  The  fact  remains  that  he  refused  to 
take  advantage  of  his  exceptional  position,  but  set 
the  example  of  paying  his  tax  to  organized  society. 
If  the  Lord  of  the  church  recognized  the  obligation 
of  performing  his  civic  duty,  despite  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  exemplification  of  the  religious  principle, 
by  what  right  does  his  church  make  itself  more 
highly  privileged  than  its  master,  and  seek  to  set 
itself  above  the  state? 

How  Jesus  Met  the  Demand  for  Taxes. 

Not  satisfied  with  example,  Jesus  is  quoted  as 
setting  forth  the  principle  specifically  and  unequivo- 
cally in  plain  words.  The  representatives  of  Juda- 
ism put  the  question  to  him  plainly.  *Ts  it  lawful 
to  give  tribute  unto  Csesar,  or  not?"  There  could 
be  no  dodging  the  issue.  They  who  inquired  of  him 
stood  for  the  church  of  his  period,  the  church  which 
he  himself  recognized  as  such.  "They  were  in- 
trusted," said  Paul,  "with  the  oracles  of  God." 
Jesus  himself  referred  to  their  temple  as  the  house 
of  God,  and  indignantly  drove  from  its  precincts  the 
traders  who  sought  to  commercialize  the  sacred  en- 
closure. It  was  his  custom  to  attend  the  synagogue, 
and  occasionally  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  ser- 


38  EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES. 

vice.  If  the  ministers  of  sacred  things  are  right- 
fully exempt  from  taxation,  the  Jewish  nation,  con- 
stituting as  a  whole  a  priesthood  to  God,  as  the 
channel  of  his  revelation  to  man,  might  surely,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  faithful  Bible  believer,  claim 
that  exemption.  Nor  were  indications  wanting 
that  they  themselves  felt  so,  and  looked  upon  it  as 
blasphemy  to  assert  the  contrary.  In  the  hope  to 
fasten  a  charge  of  either  blasphemy  on  the  one 
hand,  or  sedition  on  the  other,  on  the  wandering 
teacher,  they  eagerly  awaited  his  answer.  When 
it  came,  it  was  unanswerable.  "Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God 
the  things  that  are  God's."  Caesar  was  the  lord  of 
the  coinage  which  bore  his  "image  and  superscrij>- 
tion,"  God  of  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts  and  their 
private  lives.  Hence,  the  former  rightfully  laid 
claim  to  the  tribute  which  enabled  the  pubHc  treas- 
ury to  carry  on  not  only  the  work  of  the  coinage, 
but  all  other  public  works  of  a  secular  character; 
while  the  latter  would  hold  them  in  the  end  account- 
able for  their  failure  to  obey  his  commandments, 
summed  up  in  the  injunction  to  "love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind; 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

The  difference  between  the  Pharisees,  to  whom 
Jesus  laid  down  the  law  in  favor  of  the  payment  of 
honest  taxes,  and  the  churches,  who  are  called  upon 
to-day  to  perform  this  elementary  civic  obligation, 
lies  simply  in  the  greater  impudence  of  the  latter. 
The  interlocutors  of  Jesus,  says  the  text,  "marveled, 
and  left  him,  and  went  away."  It  is  not  stated  that 
they  proceeded  to  mend  their  ways,  and  to  become 
honest ;  but  they  at  least  had  the  decency  not  to  at- 
tempt to  bluff  themselves  out  of  a  false  position. 
Confronted  with  the  same  issue,  the  churches  of 
our  time  reject  the  commands  of  their  alleged  lord 
and  master,  and  consult  only  their  own  greed  of 
profit.  They  will  cheat  both  Caesar  and  God  out  of 
what  is  due.     That  which  they  themselves  hypo- 


fcXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  39 

critically  pretend  to  adore  as  the  word  of  God  they 
spit  on  in  their  actual  performance!  by  deliberate 
disobedience.  In  spite  of  the  almost  unHmited  ca- 
pacity of  human  nature  to  deceive  itself,  it  is  prac- 
tically incredible  that  they  can  seriously  beHeve  in 
the  puerile  sophistry  by  which  they  seek  to  con- 
jure up  pretexts  for  stealing  the  public  revenues. 
The  one  plain  reason  is  that  they  want  the  money, 
and  are  not  honest  enough  to  do  their  duty  to  the 
state  which  shelters  and  fosters  them.  They  know 
this  perfectly  well,  however  glib  they  may  be  in  try- 
ing to  persuade  the  credulous  that  in  cheating  the 
community  out  of  part  of  its  revenues  they  are 
actuated  only  by  the  highest  and  holiest  motives, 
and  that  the  fact  that  they  happen  to  be  beneficiaries 
of  the  steal  is  merely  an  irrelevant  coincidence.  It 
is  possible  that  there  are  still  marines,  to  whom 
such  a  tale  can  be  told. 

In  justice  to  sincere  believers  in  Christianity,  who 
do  not  make  their  piety  a  cloak  for  greed  and  dis- 
honesty, it  should  be  stated  that  a  conscientious 
minority  in  the  churches  has  consistently  accepted 
the  principle  of  religious  liberty  and  of  equal  jus- 
tice and  has  steadily  protested  against  every  in- 
fringement of  the  secular  principle,  even  when  the 
abuse  seemed  to  favor  their  own  interests. 

America's  First  Secularist. 

The  first  great  voice  raised  on  these  shores  for 
the  complete  separation  of  church  and  state  was 
that  of  the  Baptist  preacher  Roger  Williams, 
founder  of  the  Rhode  Island  colony,  which  as  a 
state  has  proved  in  the  latter  days  one  of  the  worst 
traitors  to  the  spirit  of  democratic  justice.  While 
the  Baptist  church  as  a  whole  has  become  no  more 
loyal  to  religious  freedom  than  any  other,  and  has 
thus  cheaply  and  basely  surrendered  its  once  glori- 
ous heritage,  it  has  always  embosomed  individual 
members  who  could  not  forget  that  the  founders  of 
their  sect  suffered  persecution  to  the  death  for  pro- 


40  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

claiming  full  freedom  of  conscience,  and  for  de- 
claring that  the  state  could  not  lawfully  meddle 
with  affairs  of  religion.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Alvah  Hovey, 
for  many  years  head  of  the  famous  Newton  (Mass.) 
Theological  Seminary,  wrote  more  than  one  book  in 
which  the  principles  of  Secularism  were  proclaimed 
in  full  measure  from  the  standpoint  of  orthodox 
religion,  and  enforced  by  numberless  arguments 
drawn  from  the  Bible  and  from  theological  lore. 
The  relatively  small  sect  of  Seventh  Day  Adven- 
tists  is  constantly  active  in  fighting  for  the  com- 
plete separation  of  church  and  state,  maintaining 
with  ardor  that  Christianity  stands  in  no  need  of 
patronage  from  human  government.  Indeed,  it 
is  amazing  that  any  Christian,  who  is  not  playing 
a  part,  but  truly  believes  in  the  divine  origin  of 
his  faith,  can  come  to  any  other  conclusion.  If 
the  church  is  of  God,  it  will  live  and  conquer, 
though  all  men  forsake  it,  and  needs  not  the  feeble 
prop  of  political  favor;  if  it  is  of  man,  and  must 
therefore  risk  failure  unless  bolstered  up  by  arti- 
ficial aid  and  by  state  subsidy,  there  is  no  reason 
why  anybody  not  directly  interested  in  its  prosperity 
should  wish  to  preserve  it.  Whether  of  God  or  of 
man,  it  is  in  no  legitimate  sense  the  ward  of  the 
state.  In  recent  years,  numerous  church  members 
are  beginning  to  have  some  inkling  of  these  truths, 
and  to  express  their  willingness  to  renounce  the 
adulterous  union  with  the  politicians.  At  the  hear- 
ings before  the  Committee  on  Taxation  of  the 
New  York  Constitutional  Convention,  in  June,  1915, 
for  example,  preachers  and  laymen,  representatives 
of  individual  churches  and  of  Men's  Christian  clubs, 
appeared  in  favor  of  abolishing  the  exemption  from 
taxation  enjoyed  by  the  churches.  They  did  so, 
not  as  enemies  of  the  church,  but  as  its  most  far- 
sighted  friends.  Thoroughly  believing  in  its  divine 
mission,  they  were  convinced  that  it  could  not 
aflFord  to  make  itself  dependent  on  graft  for  its 
very  life. 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  41 

The  Genuine  Should  Be  Conscientious. 

From  the  Christian  standpoint,  the  argument 
against  church  exemption  is  as  unanswerable  as 
that  from  the  standpoint  of  the  independent  citizen. 
A  sham  Christian,  to  whom  the  church  is  a  means 
of  getting  ahead  in  the  world,  and  whose  profession 
of  faith  is  a  cloak  to  cover  his  greed  and  egotism, 
or  a  means  of  purchasing  popularity  and  business 
success  at  any  easy  rate,  may  find  it  natural  to 
carry  over  into  his  religious  life  the  spirit  of  com- 
mercialism with  which  he  gouges  his  fellowmen 
every  day  in  his  business  relations.  It  is  only 
natural  that  such  a  one  should  be  impatient  of  any 
attempt  to  introduce  ethical  considerations  into  a 
question  of  self-advantage;  for  to  him  it  is  axio- 
matic that  any  way  of  getting  money  without  being 
arrested  is  good  enough  for  himself  and  therefore 
good  enough  for  the  church,  honesty  being  merely 
a  question  of  keeping  out  of  the  clutches  of  the 
police.  He  is  so  ignorant  of  the  very  elements  of 
morality  that  he  does  not  even  know  that  he  is  a 
hypocrite,  and  that  the  kind  of  thing  which  stands 
for  religion  to  him  is  as  worthless  as  the  cheap 
varnish  which  constitutes  his  imaginary  respectabil- 
ity. To  such  as  he,  church  exemption _ is  justified 
by  the  fact  that  the  church  is  clever  enough  to  get 
away  with  it.  A  genuine  believer  in  the  Christian 
revelation,  however,  will  wish  the  church,  as  its 
divinely  commissioned  repository,  to  "keep  itself 
unspotted  from  the  world."  He  will  insist  that,  so 
far  from  seeking  its  private  advantage  by  ques- 
tionable means,  which  may  by  casuistry  be  made 
t©  appear  defensible,  it  shall  conceive  of  itself  as 
"a  city  set  on  a  hill,"  which  "cannot  be  hid,"  and 
shall,  in  all  things  and  at  any  sacrifice,  let  its  "light 
shine  before  men,"  that  by  reason  of  its  good  works 
and  spotless  character  it  may  prove  that  it  is  of 
God,  and  not  of  men.  In  case  of  doubt,  he  will 
demand  that  it  refuse  to  set  an  example  whereby 
the  weakest  observer  may  be  caused  to  stumble. 


42  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

With  a  keener  jealousy  for  its  purity  than  that  as- 
cribed to  the  ancient  Roman,  who  declared  that 
"Caesar's  wife  must  be  above  suspicion,"  he  will 
insist  that  it  avoid  the  very  appearance  of  evil. 
Such  a  believer  will  never  be  found  in  the  halls  of 
legislation,  howling  for  the  loaves  and  fishes,  and 
asking  that  a  secular  state  stultify  itself  by  stealing 
money  from  its  individual  taxpayers,  in  order  to 
subsidize  the  proselytism  of  the  sects.  And  a  church 
composed  of  such  sincere  believers  will  not  give  oc- 
casion to  the  enemy  to  blaspheme  by  evading  its 
obligations  through  shallow  quibbles  about  its  moral 
influence  in  the  community,  but  will  prefer  to  give 
a  practical  demonstration  of  its  boasted  moral  qual- 
ity by  willingly  paying  its  honest  debts. 

The  Church  Harmed  by  Graft. 

Like  all  false  principles,  the  habit  of  accepting  a 
subsidy  from  the  state  does  not  fail  to  bring  harm  to 
the  church  itself,  as  the  intelligent  and  high-minded 
among  its  friends  are  beginning  to  realize.  It  is 
not  with  impunity  that  an  individual  or  institu- 
tion adopts  parasitism  as  a  basic  condition  of  exist- 
ence. At  the  New  York  hearing  already  referred 
to  the  Rev.  Charles  T.  Terry,  pastor  of  the  Brick 
Presbyterian  church  of  New  York  City,  did  not 
hesitate  to  aver  that  the  removal  of  the  exemption 
graft  would  kill  many  churches.  A  divinely  or- 
dained institution  is  indeed  in  a  parlous  state  when 
it  has  no  shame  in  confessing  that  it  is  dependent 
for  its  very  life  on  the  favor  of  the  politicians,  its 
God  having  totally  forsaken  it.  Such  an  organiza- 
tion is  better  dead.  If  the  alleged  divine  head  of 
the  church  is  not  able  or  willing  to  preserve  it,  in 
accordance  with  his  emphatic  promise,  "even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world,"  it  is  plain  either  that  his 
promises  are  spurious,  and  hence  the  whole  Chris- 
tian fabric  rests  upon  imposture  and  deserves  to 
perish;  or  that  the  church  which  fails  for  lack  of 
divine  aid  is  a  pretender  and  not  the  real  body  of  be- 
lievers whom  he  is  pledged  never  to  forsake.    Let 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  43 

those  so-called  Christians,  who  cling  frantically  to 
the  legislature  instead  of  to  Christ  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  agency  for  preaching  his  gospel,  take 
which  horn  of  the  dilemma  they  please. 

Every  form  of  union  with  the  state  has  not  merely 
made  of  the  church  an  instrument  of  oppression  by 
reason  of  its  preferred  position  and  the  artificial 
power  thus  conferred  on  it,  but  has  been  poison  to 
the  church  itself.  Its  political  alliance  invari- 
ably sullies  whatever  primitive  purity  it  may  be  be- 
lieved to  possess.  No  person  having  faith  in  its 
spiritual  mission  and  anxiety  to  see  it  kept  "un- 
spotted from  the  world"  and  faithful  to  its  "high 
calling"  can  fail  to  oppose  every  "entangling  al- 
liance" which  may  tend  to  corrupt  it  in  even  the 
smallest  degree.  In  theory,  the  church  should  be 
purged  of  all  motives  of  self-interest,  and  devoted 
solely  to  the  good  of  mankind.  Exemption  from 
taxation  and  the  lobbying  necessary  to  maintain  this 
special  privilege  infallibly  defeat  its  alleged  aims. 
In  the  scramble  for  political  favors,  it  learns  the 
tricks  of  "practical  politics"  at  the  expense  of  the 
unselfish  devotion  by  which  alone  it  could  justify  its 
claims  to  spiritual  leadership.  It  gains  material 
wealth  at  the  cost  of  its  own  higher  purpose.  It 
unconsciously  learns  to  regard  money  as  the  chief 
object  of  attainment,  and  to  compromise  its  sterner 
principles  for  self -advantage.  "Facilis  descensus 
Averno"  is  the  motto  over  its  downward  path. 

Arming  Church  Opponents. 

Even  if  the  church  could,  by  some  miracle  which 
has  never  yet  been  vouchsafed  to  it,  retain  its 
purity  of  character  while  remaining  the  recipient 
of  state  graft,  the  crippling  of  its  influence  would 
continue.  If  it  wishes  to  win  the  world  to  its  gospel, 
it  does  ill  to  put  the  most  potent  of  arguments  in 
the  mouths  of  its  enemies.  Let  Christians  make  no 
mistake  on  this  point.  So  long  as  the  church  con- 
tinues to  mulct  the  taxpayers  for  its  own  profit 


44  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

through  the  exemption  of  its  property  from  taxa- 
tion, it  will  be  held  by  the  multitude  to  give  the  lie 
to  its  own  professions;  and  it  will  drive  thousands 
of  earnest  seekers  for  truth  away  from  its  doors. 
We  do  not  go  to  a  thief  for  lessons  in  the  higher 
morality.  If  rejection  of  the  Christian  message 
means  the  loss  of  immortal  souls,  their  destruction 
lies  on  the  heads  of  those  representatives  of  Chris- 
tianity who  prize  a  few  dollars  stolen  from  the 
people  at  a  higher  rate  than  the  privilege  of  coming 
forward  with  clean  hands,  and  being  listened  to 
with  respect  and  in  a  teachable  spirit  by  those  whose 
ears  are  now  sealed  against  the  admission  of  the 
gospel  message  by  their  unconquerable  distrust  and 
contempt  for  those  who  come  with  lessons  of  moral 
and  spiritual  uplift,  but  whose  hands  are  tainted  by 
the  acceptance  of  graft  from  politicians  who 
never  give  without  expecting  an  equivalent  in  re- 
turn. In  receiving  this  dishonest  money  the  church 
is  not  only  guilty  of  an  immoral  act,  but  is  legiti- 
mately subject  to  many  suspicions  of  unworthy  con- 
duct of  which  it  may  be  innocent,  but  which  it  has 
debarred  itself  from  being  in  a  position  to  refute. 
It  has  thus  tied  its  own  hands  with  reference  to  its 
real  work  of  benefiting  the  spiritual  natures  of  hu- 
man beings.  Whether  the  teachings  of  Christian- 
ity are  true  or  false,  the  adulterous  union  of  church 
and  state  creates  a  reasonable  and  just  bias  against 
them,  and  prevents  them  from  having  a  fair  hearing. 
Those  who  believe  that  the  eternal  salvation  of  man- 
kind hangs  on  the  acceptance  of  these  teachings  are, 
from  their  own  standpoint,  incurring  a  fearful  re- 
sponsibility in  placing  so  huge  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  of  inquiring  minds.  They  have  no  reply, 
and  can  only  hang  their  heads  in  shame,  when  we 
outsiders  sharply  demand  what  value  a  religion  can 
have  for  mankind  if  it  cannot  breed  common  hon- 
esty even  in  the  institution  which  embodies  it  and 
which  has  no  other  function  than  to  spread  its 
teachings. 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  45 

Chief   Defense  of  Church   Subsidies. 

Since  no  corrupt  condition  has  ever  wanted  for 
apologists,  it  is  not  surprising  that  self-interest 
has  prompted  many  voluble  spokesmen  for  the 
churches  to  cast  about  for  plausible  arguments  in 
favor  of  a  system  by  which  they  fatten  on  avoid- 
ance of  responsibility.  While  most  of  such  attempts 
to  excuse  the  inexcusable  have  already  been  refuted 
in  advance,  a  brief  summary  of  those  currently 
employed  is  desirable,  as  reavealing  their  utter  in- 
eptitude. In  practically  every  case,  it  becomes  self- 
evident  that  they  are  not  the  true  reasons  for  church 
exemption,  but  worked  up  by  way  of  afterthought. 
Having  already  decided  to  rob  us,  on  quite  other 
grounds,  our  plunderers  sit  down  to  devise  specious 
phrases  which  may  serve  to  cajole  their  victims. 
In  reality,  the  exemption  of  church  property  from 
taxation  is,  of  course,  a  survival  from  the  times 
when  it  was  frankly  regarded  as  the  duty  of  the 
state  to  support  the  church  and  to  enforce  the  dog- 
mas of  religion.  This  medieval  view  having  passed 
away,  so  far  as  the  enlightened  members  of  the 
community  are  concerned,  the  subsidizing  of  the 
church  by  the  state  should  have  perished  with  it; 
but  since  the  churches  do  not  wish  to  lose  their 
easy  money,  they  have  manufactured  pretexts  for 
the  continuance  of  the  favoritism  to  which  they  are 
self -evidently  not  entitled  in  a  land  and  an  age  of 
religious  liberty  and  equality. 

The  chief  defense  of  church  graft  is  based  on 
the  claim  that  religion  is  the  supreme  moral  agency 
of  the  community.  This  argument  is  found  in  many 
forms,  and  is  highly  elaborated  by  those  who  put  it 
forward.  Boiled  down,  it  expresses  the  point  of 
view  that  the  church  is  a  voluntary  adjunct  of  the 
police  power;  that  it  lessens  crime,  and  therefore 
directly  saves  expense  and  trouble  to  society,  for 
which  exemption  from  taxation  is  only  a  reasonable 
return.  In  part,  this  argument  has  already  been 
tested  and  found  valueless.  The  church  claims  a 
kingdom,  which  "is  not  of  this  world,"  and  its  main 


46  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

business  is  to  create  subjects  for  that  kingdom.  To 
receive  salvation,  faith  is  all-essential,  moral  char- 
acter being  subsidiary.  A  single  act  of  penitence 
may  atone  for  a  lifetime  of  crime.  The  great 
work  of  the  church  is  to  develop  faith,  without 
which  the  righteous  deeds  of  the  purest  and  best 
man  on  earth  are  nothing  but  ''filthy  rags."  The 
vilest  murderer,  "converted"  under  the  fear  of  being 
presently  precipitated  into  a  yawning  hell,  and  hav- 
ing no  further  opportunity  to  enjoy  life  on  this 
earth,  may  pass  directly  from  the  gallows  or  the 
electric  chair  to  the  bosom  of  Jesus,  while  his  in- 
nocent victim,  struck  suddenly  dead  without  a 
chance  to  reflect  on  possibilities  beyond  the  grave, 
has  sunk  to  everlasting  perdition  in  spite  of  possess- 
ing a  character  above  reproach.  Is  this  the  form  of 
doctrine  calculated  to  raise  the  moral  tone  of  the 
community?  Let  it  not  be  replied  that  this  is  the 
antiquated  theology  which  the  liberal  and  most  of 
the  orthodox  churches  have  long  since  outgrown. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  teaching  of  the  entire  Ro- 
man Catholic  church  and  of  the  largest  section  of 
the  Protestant  church.  In  its  coarsest  and  crudest 
form,  it  has  in  our  own  day  been  preached  to  huge 
audiences  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other 
by  the  spectacular  evangelist,  Billy  Sunday,  as  the 
only  true  Christianity ;  and  this  otherwise  neisrligible 
religious  mountebank  has  received  the  explicit  en- 
dorsement of  the  principal  evangelical  organiza- 
tions and  an  overwhelming  maiority  of  the  ortho- 
dox preachers  in  every  one  of  the  largest  and  a 
multitude  of  the  lesser  cities  of  our  land.  The 
churches  in  which  this  renulsive  and  vicious  doc- 
trine is  tpug-ht  receive  much  the  larger  share  of  the 
benefit  from  tax  exemption. 

Double  Price  for  Salvation. 

But  from  a  social  point  of  view  the  case  is  even 
more  serious.  It  is  not  the  most  intellectual  and 
refined  classes  which  even  the  wildest  zealot  will 
claim  to  stand  in  special  need  of  religion  to  re- 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  4? 

strain  them  from  crime  and  from  all  forms  of  con- 
duct calculated  to  injure  their  neighbors  in  the  com- 
munity, but  the  most  ignorant  and  crude ;  and  it  is 
precisely  these  latter  types  which  remain  totally 
impervious  to  highly  developed  forms  of  religious 
expression,  and  throng  to  the  Catholic  cathedrals 
and  the  revival  meetings  of  the  Billy  Sundays  and 
Gipsy  Smiths,  where  belief  is  emphasized  above 
integrity  of  character.  Just  those  persons  who  may 
be  assumed  to  need  whatever  ethical  element  is  to 
be  found  in  religion  are  those  who  receive  the  least 
of  it.  If,  in  spreading  its  gospel  of  faith  and  obedi- 
ence to  ecclesiastical  superiors,  the  churches  inci- 
dentally lead  an  occasional  individual  to  a  more 
honest  and  upright  social  life,  this  result  is  simply 
a  by-product  of  the  religious  operation,  and  creates 
no  claim  on  the  state.  In  reclaiming  the  down- 
fallen,  the  church  wins  another  supporter  for  it- 
self, and  adds  a  soul  to  the  "kingdom."  In  seeking 
a  subsidy  from  the  state,  it  foregoes  its  higher 
pretensions,  and  seeks  to  be  paid  double  for  a  work 
which  it  undertook  on  its  own  account.  If  it  is 
part  of  the  function  of  the  church  to  teach  morality, 
so  is  it  part  of  the  function  of  the  home ;  and  in  the 
average  decent  home  there  is  much  more  specific, 
concrete  and  effective  teaching  of  good  morals, 
brought  closely  home  to  the  individual,  than  there  is 
in  the  best  of  churches.  Yet  the  home  does  not 
claim  exemption  from  taxation  because  of  its  moral 
influence.  As  has  been  suggested  elsewhere,  the 
argument  as  to  moral  influence  speedily  leads  to  a 
reductio  ad  absurdum,  implying,  as  it  does,  that  all 
taxes  should  be  raised  from  the  vicious  and  im- 
moral elements  in  the  community — that  criminals 
should  be  the  only  taxpayers,  or  that  taxes  should 
be  levied  on  citizens  and  institutions  in  inverse 
ratio  to  the  moral  character  and  ethical  influence  of 
each !  Every  legitimate  enterprise  of  any  descrip- 
tion exercises  a  wholesome  moral  influence  in  the 
community,  and  directly  benefits  society  in  one  way 
or  another;  and  the  church,  even  taking  it  at  its 


48  EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 

own  valuation,  is  but  one  of  many  institutions 
which,  while  existing  primarily  for  ends  of  their 
own,  are  incidentally  of  benefit  to  society  as 
a  whole.  Why  should  it  be  the  only  one  to  demand 
a  favoritism  incompatible  with  self-respect  or  with 
justice  to  its  fellows?  The  question  as  to  the  ex- 
emption of  educational,  charitable  and  certain  other 
institutions  need  not  here  be  raised  to  confuse  the 
issue.  Each  of  these  must  be  settled  on  its  own 
merits.  It  is  enough  to  suggest  that  where  their 
primary  function,  like  that  of  the  church,  is  some- 
thing with  which  the  state  is  not  directly  concerned, 
they  fall  in  the  same  category,  and  have  no  right  to 
any  subsidy.  Where,  however,  their  entire  work  is 
directed  toward  meeting  a  recognizedly  collective 
need,  which  the  state  finds  it  less  practical  or  satis- 
factory to  discharge  in  a  more  direct  manner,  ex- 
emption from  taxation  is  properly  invoked  as  an 
indirect  means  of  accomplishing  the  social  end. 
The  impropriety  of  exempting  any  sectarian  or  par- 
tisan institution  results  from  the  entire  argument 
herein  contained.  As  to  non-partisan  and  non-sec- 
tarian institutions,  the  question  of  propriety  is  one 
of  fact,  to  be  determined  by  the  best  public  judg- 
ment in  accordance  with  the  foregoing  principle. 

Belief  and  Criminality. 

While  the  argument  has  thus  far  proceeded  on 
the  assumption  that  the  church,  in  spite  of  certain 
questionable  teachings,  is  to  be  taken  at  its  own 
valuation  as  a  moral  agency,  fidelity  to  truth  de- 
mands the  plain  statement  of  the  fact  that  such 
definite  particulars  as  are  available  fail  to  bear  out 
the  claims  so  positively  put  forward.  This  is  es- 
pecially true  of  our  criminal  statistics.  Even  on  the 
most  generous  calculations,  the  church  membership 
of  the  country  embraces  considerably  less  than  half 
of  the  population.  If  the  church  were  so  powerful  a 
moral  factor  as  its  supporters  declare  it  to  be,  we 
should  expect  to  find  the  average  criminal  a  wholly 
irreligious  being,  with  no  contact  or  sympathy  with 


EXEMPTING'  'tfeE  tTHURCHES.  49 

•'the  doctrines   of  Christianity.     What  we  actually 
'^''M)serve  is  that  of  all  the  criminals  in  penitentiaries 
^^Iri  this  country,  not  less  than  75  per  cent,  are  of 
{Christian  antecedents  and  profess  a  beHef  in  re- 
^Uigious   dogmas;    while   the   number   of    Christian 
<*'Preachers  convicted  of  crime  is  so  large  as  to  be 
-almost  incredible,  in  spite  of  the   fact  that  most 
'^'tases  of  minor  clerical  offenses  and  some  of  the 
^ore  serious  ones  are  systematically  hushed  up,  to 
••kvoid  public  scandal  for  the  church.*     (Benefit  of 
-' felergy,  though  theoretically  as  obsolete  as  it  is  in- 
'■^^excusable  in  a  secular  democracy,  is  known  to  all 
Who  are  on  the  inside  to  be  a  tangible  fact  in  our 
land  today.     It  is  one  of  the  forms  of  indecent 
favoritism  of  which  the  church  and  its  agents  are 
always  eager  to  avail  themselves).     In  any  one  of 
the  annual  reports  of  the  Society  for  the  Suppres- 
sion of  Vice,  the  reader  may  observe  that  the  late 
'-Anthony   Comstock,   though   an    excessively   pious 
•  ' Christian  and  hater  of  all  forms  of  unbelief,  bears 
-feluctant  testimony  in  tabular  form  to  the  over- 
■vvhelming    preponderance    of    religious    offenders 
among  those  whose  convictions  he  has  secured.   For 
example,  the  total  number  of  arrests   for  crimes 
against  the  obscenity  and  lottery  laws  from  March, 
1872,  to  January,  1915,  was  3,641.    Of  these  (an- 
nual report  for  1914)  1078  were  Jews,  964  Catho- 
lics, 954  Protestants,  and  564  of  no  known  religion, 
leaving  only  80  to  be  distributed  among  the  several 
classes  of  Freethinkers,  Spiritualists  and  "heathen." 
'The     figures     speak     for     themselves.       Turning 
'from   statistics   to   scientific   criminology,   we   find 
abundant    confirmation    of    the    close  relation  be- 
tween religion  and    crime.       So    far    from    being 
'a  restraint,  religious  faith  of  a  very  intense  sort  is 
''tbmmonly   found  closely  associated   with   criminal 
"fertdencies,  ^rid  is  one  of  the  most  marked  charac- 


*  See  "Religion  and  Roguery,"  b.y  Franklin  Steiiier. 
Price  10  cents.  For  sale  by  The  Truth  Seeker  Co.  Alsc 
"Crimes  of  Preachers,"  for  sale  by  the  same.  Price,  35 
centf. 


50  EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 

tcristics  of  the  typical  criminal.  This  conclusion, 
unpalatable  though  it  is  to  the  defenders  of  the 
churches,  is  irrefutably  proven  valid  by  the  most 
competent  observers.  (See  "The  Criminal,"  by 
Havelock  Ellis,  fourth  edition,  pages  185-190,  with 
facts  and  citations  from  Ferri,  Garofalo,  Casanova, 
et  al. )  Let  it  not  be  thought  that  the  writer  is  here 
attempting  to  prove  that  religion  is  a  frequent  cause 
of  crime.  It  is  enough  to  show  that  it  is  practi- 
cally inoperative  as  an  inhibition.  The  many  good 
men  and  women  who  are  also  pious  put  the  cart 
before  the  horse  in  crediting  their  religion  with 
their  moral  character.  Whatever  ethical  elements 
the  higher  forms  of  religion  contain  in  theory,  it 
is  not  these  on  which  the  incidence  is  laid  in  re- 
ligious teaching:  or  in  the  performance  of  religious 
ceremonies.  Consequently,  no  matter  how  much  is 
said  in  the  churches  of  righteousness,  as  an  ob- 
served sociological  fact  religion  has  little  to  do  with 
it,  one  way  or  the  other.  The  good  man  or  woman, 
on  becominsf  religious,  remains  good;  the  bad  man 
or  woman  does  not  cease  to  be  bad  because  of  pos- 
sessing a  strong  religious  faith  and  participating  in 
religious  exercises.  Those  who  have  been  both  vir- 
tuous and  religious  all  their  lives  would  have  been 
no  less  virtuous  if  they  had  never  heard  of  religion. 
Even  the  tyro  in  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  re- 
ligious belief  knows  that  primitive  forms  of  re- 
ligion are  entirely  void  of  ethical  content.  The 
moral  imperative  is  a  gradual  development  of  the 
social  instinct;  while  the  religious  "instinct"  is  the 
reaction  of  the  individual  to  external  influences 
which  inspire  him,  in  his  ignorance  of  their  real 
nature  and  of  their  subjection  to  iron  laws  of  cause 
and  effect,  with  fear  and  wonder.  (Admiration, 
gratitude  for  imagined  favors,  hope  for  protection 
and  support,  and  other  forms  of  mental  or  emo- 
tional reaction,  come  somewhat  later,  and  are  effi- 
cient in  reshaping  the  primitive  phases  of  religion 
into  more  specific  conceptions  of  anthropomorphic 
deities.)     In  the  course  of  time,  it  becomes  natural 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  51 

that  the  worshiper  of  beings  above  himself,  to 
whom  his  supreme  reverence  is  due,  should  come  to 
endow  those  beings  with  the  highest  quahties  he  is 
capable  of  conceiving,  and  hence  should  represent 
them  as  authors  of  the  moral  law  which  has  become 
an  ingrained  part  of  his  personal  and  social  exist- 
ence. Yet  it  remains  a  fact  with  both  the  savage 
and  the  civilized  man  that  his  moral  conceptions 
change  from  age  to  age,  and  that  his  attribution  of 
any  particular  ethical  mandate  to  his  deity  is  always 
an  afterthought.  In  other  words,  both  in  general 
and  in  detail,  morality  caused  and  determined  by 
social  needs  and  the  growth  of  the  social  spirit  pre- 
cedes morality  under  a  religious  sanction,  and 
would  persist,  even  if  all  forms  of  religion  should 
be  annihilated.  The  church  does  not  create  moral 
standards  for  the  community,  but  is  at  most  a  regis- 
ter of  them.  Without  the  church,  it  is  probable  that 
few  individuals  would  be  either  more  or  less  moral 
than  with  it;  they  would  simply  use  other  terms  in 
which  to  interpret  their  moral  sentiments  to  them- 
selves and  others.  There  need  then  be  no  fear  of 
the  consequences  of  recaUing  the  churches  to  the 
exercise  of  common  honesty.  As  recipients  of 
graft,  they  can  certainly  not  claim  to  exemplify  the 
morality  which  they  profess  to  teach.  Such  of  them 
as  cannot  live  without  theft  from  the  taxpayers  are 
better  dead,  since  their  dependence  on  dishonesty 
for  existence  must  more  than  nullify  any  conceiv- 
able good  which  they  can  do  the  community  by  the 
hollow  mockery  of  teaching  a  morality  which  they 
do  not  practice.  On  the  other  hand,  such  churches 
as  find  it  possible  to  live  on  an  honorable  basis, 
without  claiming  a  subsidy,  will  stand  some  chance 
of  being  listened  to  when  they  seek  to  preach  moral- 
ity to  others. 

Institutional  Work   Not  Menaced. 

It  is  further  claimed  that  the  church  is  directly 
engaged  in  social  and  philanthropic  activities,  which 
would  become  sorely  crippled  by  a  forced  diminu- 


52  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

tion  of  revenue.  Advocates  of  this  view  have  de- 
clared that  the  church  is  specially  fitted  for  many 
branches  of  social  service,  being  able  to  command 
invaluable  volunteer  assistance,  which  the  state 
could  not  hire  at  any  price.  Hence  they  conclude 
that  the  elimination  of  the  churches  would  throw 
on  the  state  a  burden  far  in  excess  of  the  amount 
now  conceded  to  these  institutions  in  exemption 
from  taxation. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  foregoing  claim  of  the 
church  rests  entirely  on  assumptions  of  the  most 
gratuitous  nature.  In  the  first  place,  only  a  minor- 
ity of  the  churches  are  of  the  "institutional"  order, 
and  practically  engaged  in  social  welfare  work; 
and  in  the  exemption  laws  no  distinction  is  made 
between  this  minority  and  the  large  majority  of 
churches  which  render  no  such  public  service.  In 
fact,  the  law  works  entirely  in  favor  of  the  para- 
sitic churches,  the  mere  accumulators  of  wealth. 
The  institutional  churches  attract  to  themselves  the 
support  of  individuals  who  wish  to  see  the  work 
done,  and  who  will  stand  by  them  to  any  extent 
needed;  while  the  other  class  of  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  which  exist  mainly  for  the  promulgation 
of  eflfete  dogmas,  lean  on  the  state  for  a  much 
larger  proportion  of  their  total  revenue.  With 
state  help,  they  fatten  and  become  rich;  while  the 
few  socialized  churches  spend  their  revenues  as 
fast  as  they  come  in.  The  repeal  of  exemption 
laws  would  not  kill  any  churches  which  are  doing  a 
work  felt  in  the  community  to  be  one  of  public 
necessity ;  it  is  the  socially  useless  churches  which 
would  be  forced  to  perish,  if  they  could  not  win 
sufficient  voluntary  support  by  showing  some  indi- 
cation of  deserving  it.  The  fallacy  that  the  repeal 
of  exemption  laws  means  the  killing  of  the  institu- 
tional churches  or  the  crippling  of  their  work  is  a 
most  glaring  one. 

It  is  further  not  true  that  the  supporters  of  the 
social  work  now  done  through  the  higher  type 
of  churches   would  lose  all  interest  in  it  if  the 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES.  53 

church  were  to  disappear  from  the  scene.  Such  a 
claim  is  an  insult  to  human  nature  and  a  fatal  con- 
fession with  reference  to  the  quality  of  the  religion 
which  is  thus  assumed  to  teach  its  followers  to 
labor  only  for  the  sake  of  the  church  and  not  for 
the  love  of  mankind.  The  desire  to  minister  to 
social  needs,  found  among  the  nobler  men  and 
women  of  all  forms  of  faith  and  of  unbelief,  would 
persist  in  undiminished  degree.  If  the  church  were 
gone,  it  would  simply  use  other  channels  through 
which  to  work.  They  would  likewise  be  joined  by 
others,  who  cannot  conscientiously  assist  in  the 
promulgation  of  dogmas  they  consider  false  and 
pernicious,  even  though  the  doctrinal  teaching  is 
subtly  interblended  with  philanthropic  work;  and 
by  still  others,  whose  earnestly  proffered  services 
are  rejected  by  the  religious  bodies,  because,  al- 
though eager  to  help  in  social  service,  they  cannot 
pronounce  the  doctrinal  shibboleths  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism.  The  spontaneous  response  of  men  and  wo- 
men to  proven  human  need  has  been  demonstrated 
again  and  again,  and  never  more  than  during  the 
great  world  war,  in  the  immense  sums  of  money 
and  quantities  of  needful  articles  eagerly  proffered 
and  the  vast  amount  of  personal  service  freely  ren- 
dered, sometimes  at  the  risk  or  cost  of  life  itself, 
to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  military  and  civil  vic- 
tims resident  in  alien  lands  and  totally  unknown  to 
the  millions  of  volunteer  helpers.  No  church  ac- 
tivity was  needed  to  stir  all  this  active  and  uncalcu- 
lating  benevolence  into  life;  and  none  is  required  to 
arouse  the  higher  sentiment  in  the  community  to 
co-operate  in  combating  its  poverty,  illness  and 
degradation. 

The  Church  Shows  Ulterior  Motives. 

Moreover,  the  church  is  far  from  being  the  best 
agent  for  the  carrying  on  of  social  service.  The 
trouble  is  that  it  has  its  own  axe  to  grind.  Its 
eye  is  not  single  to  the  relief  of  human  suffering, 
but  it  has  also  to  think  of  converting  the  sufferers 


54  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

to  its  creed.  It  is  constantly  tempted  to  play  upon 
the  gratitude  of  those  whom  it  helps,  to  induce 
their  attendance  at  its  services,  if  not  to  dragoon 
these  helpless  dependents  into  an  outward  expres- 
sion of  behef.  Even  where  it  does  not  discrimi- 
nate against  non-believers  in  its  creed,  or  seek  in 
any  way  to  abuse  its  position  in  order  to  proselyte 
them  directly,  it  too  often  does  its  alms  to  be  seen 
of  men,  and  turns  its  social  work  into  a  huge  ad- 
vertising scheme,  after  the  fashion  of  an  ostenta- 
tiously philanthropic  Rockefeller,  who  gives  with 
one  hand  and  with  the  utmost  publicity  about  one- 
hundredth  part  of  what  he  extorts  from  the  masses 
with  the  other  hand.  At  best,  its  activities  are  such 
as  to  generate  a  reasonable  suspicion  that  its  aims 
are  not  wholly  pure,  nor  its  work  of  unmixed  qual- 
ity; and  the  net  result  is  not  a  wholesome  one. 

For  the  best  good  of  the  community,  social  ser- 
vice needs  to  be  entirely  divorced  from  dogma, 
whether  performed  by  the  state  as  part  of  its  duty 
towards  its  members,  or  by  private  individuals  or 
groups  as  a  voluntary  effort  to  lessen  the  sorrows 
and  evils  of  humanity.  If  the  church  insists  on 
doing  a  part  of  this  community  work,  let  it,  like 
others  engaged  in  such  work,  do  so  at  its  own  cost. 
If  it  is  sincere  in  its  wish  to  help  mankind,  it  will 
not  balk  at  this  condition;  if  not,  it  betrays  the 
selfishness  of  its  aims.  The  argument  in  favor  of 
exempting  from  taxation  organizations  doing  noth- 
ing but  philanthropic  work,  and  organized  for  no 
other  purpose,  cannot  be  honorably  stretched  to 
embrace  bodies  formed  to  propagate  particu- 
lar creeds,  which  simply  take  on  philan- 
thropic activities  as  a  side  line.  If  this  were  other- 
wise, every  factory  which  introduces  a  "welfare 
department"  should  by  a  parity  of  argument  im- 
mediately have  all  its  property  exempted  from  con- 
tribution to  the  public  revenues. 

Churches  as  Enhancers  of  Real  Estate  Values. 

The  curious  argument  has  sometimes  b«en  urged 


EXEMPTING  THE   CHURCHES.  55 

that  churches  raise  the  value  of  adjacent  property, 
and  should  therefore  escape  taxation.  If  this  be 
indeed  a  fact,  it  proves  either  nothing  to  the  pur- 
pose or  a  great  deal  too  much  for  the  comfort  of 
those  who  put  it  forward.  It  is  difficult  to  see  why 
the  taxpayers  of  an  entire  city  should  reward  the 
church  for  enriching  the  few  property-owners 
canny  enough  to  secure  land  adjoining  clerically 
owned  property.  By  merely  increasing  the  value 
of  certain  pieces  of  property  at  the  expense  of  land 
less  fortunately  located,  the  community  as  a  whole 
is  not  made  a  substantial  gainer.  Even  taking  the 
most  favorable  view,  it  is  certain  that  the  "unearn- 
ed increment"  of  the  property  adjoining  the  church 
will  never  rise  so  high  as  to  overbalance  the  total 
value  of  the  church  property  withdrawn  from  taxa- 
tion ;  and  hence  the  encouraging  of  church-building 
by  tax  exemption  must  represent  a  net  financial 
loss  to  the  community.  Moreover,  every  improve- 
ment on  land  increases  the  value  of  neighboring 
property;  hence  the  argument,  if  valid  at  all,  war- 
rants the  exemption  of  all  improvements  from  tax- 
ation, and  the  equal  taxation  of  all  land  values, 
whether  the  land  is  built  on  by  churches  or  other- 
wise utilized,  or  left  wholly  unimproved. 

The  fact  should  also  be  recognized  that  to  many 
the  existence  of  churches  adjacent  to  their  prop- 
erty is  anything  but  a  benefit.  So  far  from  re- 
garding the  value  of  their  property  as  increased 
by  the  coming  of  a  church,  many  an  owner  will 
resent  the  intrusion,  and  sell  out  at  a  loss,  rather 
than  be  exposed  to  some  of  the  features  of  church 
activity  in  his  immediate  vicinity.  To  many,  the 
ringing  of  church  bells  is  an  intolerable  nuisance 
and  a  positive  grievance.  The  collection  of  crowds, 
even  of  the  most  decorous  nature,  is  most  ob- 
jectionable to  others.  In  New  York  and  other 
cities,  property  in  certain  sections  is  higftily  re- 
stricted by  deeds  which  provide  against  the  erec- 
tion of  churches,  no  less  than  of  livery  stables  and 
other  structures  considered  undesirable  in  a  resi- 


5ft?  EXEMPTING  THE  CHURCHES. 

dential  neighborhood.    Real  estate  men  do  not  bear 
out  the  claim  that  the  inevitable  or  even  the  usual 
result  of  the  erection  of  churches  is  to  increase  theit 
value  of  property  in  the  vicinity.  ;.   ,>u(j 

^^J    Sophistry  at  the  New  York  Hearing,'' „f'|[{^ 

eThe  weakness  of  the  case  for  the  exemption  'Of'-' 
church  property  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that  the 
foregoing  easily  refuted  claims  represent  substan- 
tially the  entire  case  in  its   favor.     At  the   New- 
York  hearing  of   1915,  and  at  all  other  hearings  ' 
before  the  various  legislative  bodies  of  our  land, 
they  have  been  the  only  points  on  which  stress  was 
sought  to  be  laid.     Incidentally,  of  course,  minor >> 
assertions  have  been  made,  such  as  the  alleged  fadt"^ 
that  the  church  is  a  public  utility,  in  the  mainte-^v 
nance  of  which  the  community  has  a  direct  interest.* n 
This  plea,  on  which  small  reliance  is  usually  placedi.;*' 
has  been  fully  disposed  of  by  the  analysis  on  a  pre-*'! 
ceding  page  of  the  function  of  the  church.     Some^;.)? 
times  attention  is  called  to  the  apparent  preponder-i 
ance  of  interest  in  favor  of  exemption,  as  witnessed 
by  the  number  of  speakers  who  appear  in  its  favor 
at  committee  hearings  and  by  the  number  and  size 
of  the  organizations  which  they  represent.     This 
is  obviously  the  most  transparent  sophistry.     Prin- 
ciples are  not  to  be  gauged  by  numbers.    A  country;!:' 
in  which  the  mob  may  dispose  at  its  lightest  whim- 
of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  individual  or  of;;; 
the  minority  is  a  land  of  tyranny,  and  cannot  pros-/ J 
per  in  the  end.     Moreover,  the  alleged  preponder^vr 
ance  does  not  even  prove  that  the  majority  of  the-li 
citizens  are  in  favor  of  the  special  privilege  dis^  ;, 
honestly  demanded  by  the  churches.    It  merely  fur^l  t 
nishes  fresh  evidence  of  the  well-known  fact  thatii. 
parties  with  special  interests  to  be  subserved  by 
class  legislation  will  organize  more  efficiently  than 
those  appearing  for  the  general  interest  of  the  citi- 
zens, but  not  backed  by  powerful  existing  organi- 
zations well  supplied  with  funds  and  having  much,!- 
to  gain  or  lose  in  a  financial  way  by  the  passageio 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  SJ?r 

Of  defeat  of  the  proposed  legislation.     It  is  hard . 
to  stir  up  popular  interest  to  the  point  of  action  in 
matters  that  involve  the  civic  conscience.   Never-: 
theless,  the  people  are  slowly  awakening  to  a  reali- 
zation of  the  iniquity  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
churches,  for  their  own  profit,  have  played  upon 
the  religious  emotions  of  those  under  their  influ- 
ence; and  a  day  of  reckoning  is  imminent.      The 
sentiment  in  behalf  of  the  repeal  of  the  dishonesty 
exemption   laws   is   growing  continually    stronger jjj 
and  must  finally  become  irresistible.  .  ,r.; 

It  has  sometimes  been  asserted  that  precedent  is 
against  the  taxing  of  churches.    At  the  New  York 
hearing,  this  was  gravely  put  forth  by  a  Presby- 
terian  preacher  as   a   serious   argument;   and    he 
sought  to  dismiss  the  proposition  by  cavalierly  re- 
marking that  it  was  part  of  the  present  craze  for 
new  taxes  of  all  sorts.    His  deliverance  was  echoed 
by  a  lawyer  hired  to  represent   Grace   Episcopal 
church,  the  church  which  showed  its  moral  stan- 
dards by  cheating  its  architect  out  of  his  fee  on  a  - 
contemptible  legal  technicality.  "I  am  old-fashioned 
enough,"  remarked  the  lawyer,  metaphorically  pat- 
ting himself  on  the  back  for  his  astute  appeal  to 
religious  prejudice,  "to  beheve  that  the  house  of 
God  should  not  be  taxed."     In  other  words,  what-  ■ 
ever  is,  is  right.     No  old  abuse  must  ever  be  abol- 
ished, and  every  new  idea  must  be  wrong.     Could 
there  be  a  finer  admission  that  the  bent  of  the  , 
churchly  trained  mind  is  against  all  progress,  and  ^ 
prone  to  resist  change  merely  because  it  is  new? 

Confessed  Treason  to  American  Principles. 

•^-    .      7  Kid. 

The  defenders  of  church  graft  never  fail  in  the 
end  to  reveal  their  real  position.    At  no  public  hear*  >  f 
ing  has  it  ever  happened  that  the  shrewder  rei>-r3 
resentatives  of  the  church  were  able  to  restrain  their  - 
less  subtle  colleagues  from  avowing  their  disbelief  " 
in  the  separation  of  church  and  state,  and  their  con- 
viction that  the   government   should   consider   the 
support  of  religion  as  part  of  its  business.    The  im- 


58  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

portant  hearing  so  often  quoted  had  several  such 
confessions  of  treason  to  American  principles.  The 
Rev.  Charles  T.  Terry  of  the  Brick  Presbyterian 
church  of  New  York  city,  when  asked  whether  he 
would  think  it  proper  for  the  state  to  appropriate 
money  directly  for  the  support  of  the  churches,  since 
exemption  was  but  an  indirect  way  of  accomplishing 
the  same  result,  completely  missed  the  object  of  the 
question,  and  instead  of  attempting  to  distinguish 
the  two  methods  in  principle  calmly  assumed  that 
there  could  be  no  question  of  impropriety  in  either, 
and  explained  that  he  preferred  the  exemption 
method  as  more  dignified.  If  he  had  been  entirely 
frank,  he  might  have  confessed  his  doubt  whether 
a  direct  theft  from  the  taxpayers  would  be  tolerated 
in  this  enlightened  period.  The  American  churches 
would  be  only  too  glad  to  adopt  the  English  method 
of  open  and  unabashed  robbery  of  dissenting  citi- 
zens for  the  support  of  the  churches  in  whose  doc- 
trines they  do  not  believe.  This,  however,  has  be- 
come an  impossibility. 

In  our  colonial  period  we  passed  through  the  men- 
tal condition  in  which  church  and  state  were  con- 
sidered as  one,  and  neglect  of  religious  "duty"  was 
punished  as  an  oflfense  against  the  community.  In 
default  of  a  return  to  those  days,  so  blessed  in  the 
view  of  the  enemies  of  religious  liberty,  the  churches 
are  willing  to  accept  the  indirect  contribution  of  the 
state  to  their  private  expenses  incurred  in  the  in- 
terest of  sectarian  proselytism.  True  Americanism, 
however,  finds  no  logical  distinction  between  the 
one  method  and  the  other.  A  difiference  of  degree 
may  exist,  but  not  one  of  kind. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  D.  C.  Potter'  of  Brooklyn,  who  at- 
tended the  hearing,  scorned  to  argue  with  unbeliev- 
ers in  any  way  except  by  ejaculations.  He  fairly 
screeched  his  horror  of  the  idea  that  anybody 
should  propose  to  "tax  the  house  of  God."  The 
finely-spun  fallacies  of  his  colleagues,  who  talked 


•  See  "Crimea  of  Preachers." 


EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES.  59 

of  the  "social  services"  of  the  churches  and  their 
alleged  protection  to  the  community  from  a  flood  of 
vice  and  crime,  went  down  in  the  wind  before  his 
anguished  yells  at  the  thought  that  reHgious  liberty 
and  the  separation  of  church  and  state  were  in  dan- 
ger of  becoming  complete  realities  in  a  democracy 
nominally  pledged  to  the  unwavering  support  of 
these  great  principles.  In  the  same  spirit,  Herman 
Metz,  a  politician  and  former  officeholder,  irrele- 
vantly remarked  that  the  plea  that  non-churchgoers 
should  not  be  forced  to  meet  the  expenses  of  an 
institution  which  is  of  no  value  to  them  is  like 
the  objection  to  paying  taxes  for  schools  if  we  hap- 
pen to  have  no  children,  or  for  the  fire  department 
if  our  house  has  never  been  on  fire !  The  utter  lack 
of  distinction  between  the  ministering  to  private 
wants  and  the  performance  of  a  public  function 
would  do  discredit  to  an  imbecile.  Still  worse,  be- 
cause less  excusable,  was  the  assertion  of  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler,  president  of  Columbia  University, 
a  man  of  education  and  formal  culture,  that  a  per- 
son who  did  not  believe  in  religion  should  be  taxed 
to  support  the  churches  just  as  an  Anarchist  should 
be  taxed  to  support  the  government !  With  greater 
suavity  and  shrewdness,  but  no  less  indifference  to 
historic  fact  and  democratic  principle,  William  D. 
Guthrie,  appearing  as  attorney  for  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic interests,  rejected  the  easy  way  out  of  pretend- 
ing that  the  churches  subserved  some  civic  function, 
and  defended  their  claims  on  the  ground  that  "im- 
memorial practice"  sanctioned  the  exemption  graft. 
In  other  words,  a  wrong  becomes  right,  an  abuse  a 
virtue,  if  it  is  only  continued  long  enough!  Mr. 
Guthrie  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  Christianity 
is  part  of  the  common  law  of  the  land.  If  this  be 
true,  our  case  even  yet  is  not  hopeless,  for  the 
"common  law"  of  England,  from  which  American 
jurisprudence  is  derived,  did  not  drop  down  from 
heaven  as  a  sacred  deposit,  forever  perfect  and  un- 
changeable. As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of  it  has  long 
since  been  superseded  by  the  constitutional  law  of 


60s  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES  : 

the  nation  and  the  states,  and  by  innumerable  stat- 
utes.    From  the  moment  of  the  adoption  of  our 
Federal  Constitution,  expressly  forbidding  an  "es- 
tabHshment  of  religion,"  Christianity,  whatever  its 
status  under  the  common  law,  ceased  to  form  an 
integral  part  of  the  law  of  the  United  States,  and . 
became  simply  one  of  many  forms  of  private  belief^  . 
the  relative  number  of  its  adherents  being  totally! ; 
immaterial.    In  the  treaty  with  Tripoli,  secured  dur^ 
ing  the  administration  of  George  Washington,  our 
first  great  President  placed  his  signature  to  the  spe- 
cific statement  that  the  government  of  this  land  is  in 
no  sense  founded  on  the  Christian  religion.      The 
f orenamed  gentlemen,  one  and  all,  far  from  lending  ; 
strength  to  their  cause  by  invoking  the  outworn  tra-i  r 
ditions  of  the  past  and  by  appealing  to  the  brute 
force  of  religious  bigotry  against  the  equal  civic 
rights  of  all  citizens,  have  turned  state's  evidence 
against  their  accomplices  by  the  unthinking  con? 
fession  that  the  case  for  church  exemption  rests 
in  the  last  analysis  on  treason  to  the  Constitution: 
and  to  the  principle  of  separation  of  church  and 
state.     When  the  enemies  of  religious  liberty  and 
the  rights  of  man  thus  come  out  in  their  true  colors 
we  know  how  to  meet  them.     It  is  the  insidious 
method  of  seeking  to  shelter  church  graft  under 
pretensions  of  the  common  weal;; ithatv is  abki to, ) 
deceive  the  public  for  a  time^i  U^in^rrt  .^'iror-iffif  ^jlo 

'/Church  and  State  in  American  History;!^  \"^" 

Our  fight  against  church  graft  is  not  new,  for 
through  the  ages  of  human  history  men  slow  in 
learning  the  lesson  of  equal  liberty  have  made  this 
warfare  inevitable.  Even  those  honestly  desirous  to. 
be  fair  have  found  it  easy  to  cheat  themselves  with  , 
convenient  sophistry,  and  to  frame  fantastic  reas- 
ons for  deeming  the  public  weal  inseparably  bound 
up  with  their  particular  group  of  dogmas,  so  that 
the  good  of  mankind  must  require  the  submission 
of  dissenters  to  the  popular  creed.  That  the  whole 
conimunity  should  be  iforced  to  support  the  church 


^g JPEMPtING'  ^tilE*  "CHURCHES.  -'61 

appeared  axiomatic  to  the  New  England  of  Gov- 
ernor Bradford,  Cotton  Mather  and  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards. The  settlement  of  Rhode  Island  by  Roger 
WilHams  and  his  associates,  on  the  basis  of  com- 
plete religious  liberty,  was  the  first  event  to  startle 
Puritanism  into  a  realization  that  the  right  of  the 
church  to  control  the  state  was  not  as  self-evident 
as  had  been  thought.  Later  were  heard  bold  voices 
to  demand  that  the  church  take  its  proper  position 
in  the  community  as  a  voluntary  body  of  believers, 
free  to  worship  in  its  own  fashion,  and  leaving  all 
others  free  to  do  likewise  or  not  to  worship  at  all. 
And  finally  the  foremost  and  boldest  thinkers  began 
to  see  that  there  could  be  no  equal  justice  while  un- 
believers were  mulcted  in  taxation  to  support  the 
churches.  One  of  the  first  protests  against  the  wrong 
which  still  prevails,  although  now  disguised  under 
the  form  of  exemption,  took  the  shape  of  a  me- 
morial to  the  jSfeneral  court  (legislature)  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  1775.  The  core  of  the  argument  is  Con- 
tained in  the  following  paragraph:        r^qioiq  hn^. 

"For  a  civil  legislature  to  impose  religibas  tdx 
is,  we  coilWTve,  a  power  which  their  constituents 
never  had  to  give,  and  therefore  going  entirely  out 
of  their  jurisdiction.  We  are  persuaded  that  an  en- 
tire freedom  from  being  taxed  by  civil  rulers  to 
religious  worship  is  not  a  mere  favor  from  any  man 
or  men  in  the  world,  but  a  right  and  property 
granted  us  by  God,  who  commands  us  to  stand  fast 
to  it.  We  should  wrong  our  consciences  by  allow- 
ing that  power  to  men  which  we  believe  belongs 
only  to  God." 

In  the  same  spirit,  the  pious  and  learned  Rev.  Dr. 
Wayland,  in  his  "Political  Economy,"  wrote: 

"All  that  religious  societies  have  a  right  to  ask 
of  the  civil  government  is  the  same  privileges  for 
transacting  their  own  affairs  which  societies  of 
every  other  sort  possess.  This  thev  have  a  right 
to  demand,  not  because  they  are  religious  societies, 
but  because  the  exercise  of  religion  is  an  innocent 
mode  of  pursuing  happiness.     If  it  happens  acci- 


62  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

dentally  that  others  are  benefited,  it  does  not  follow- 
that  they  are  obliged  to  pay  for  this  benefit.  It 
cannot  be  proved  that  the  Christian  religion  needs 
the  support  of  the  civil  government,  since  it  has 
existed  and  flourished  when  entirely  deprived  of 
this  support." 

An   Opinion  by   Franklin. 

After  the  theologian,  the  philosopher.  These  are 
the  words  of  the  truth-loving  friend  of  justice,  Ben- 
jamin Franklin: 

"When  a  religion  is  good,  I  conceive  that  it  will 
support  itself;  and  when  it  cannot  support  itself, 
and  God  does  not  take  care  to  support  it,  so  its 
professors  are  obliged  to  call  for  help  from  the  civil 
power,  it  is  a  sign,  I  apprehend,  of  its  being  a  bad 
one." 

The  soundness  of  Franklin's  test  cannot  be  suc- 
cessfully disputed.  If  the  churches  must  look  to 
the  state,  instead  of  to  their  God,  for  continued  life 
and  prosF>erity,  it  is  "a  sign,"  indisputable  as  a  voice 
from  heaven,  that  they  are  not  divinely  commission- 
ed, but  are  impostors.  The  demand  for  exemption 
from  taxation  is  a  confession  of  lost  spiritual 
values. 

What  Grant  and  Garfield  Said. 

Two  presidents  of  the  United  States,  braving  ec- 
clesiastical censure,  have  had  the  moral  courage  to 
speak  out  on  the  present  question.  One  of  them, 
the  heroic  Grant,  was  heretical  in  his  religious 
views;  the  other,  the  martyred  Garfield,  was  an 
orthodox  Christian,  and  had  been  a  clergyman  and 
president  of  a  religious  college.  In  Grant's  presi- 
dential message  in  1875,  he  said: 

"In  connection  with  this  important  question,  I 
would  also  call  your  attention  to  the  importance  of 
correcting  an  evil  that,  if  permitted  to  continue, 
will  probably  lead  to  great  trouble  in  our  land  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  the 
acquisition   of   vast   amounts   of   untaxed    church 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES.  63 

property.  In  1850,  I  believe,  the  church  property 
of  the  United  States,  which  paid  no  tax,  municipal 
or  state,  amounted  to  $87,000,000.  In  1860  the 
amount  had  doubled.  In  1870  it  was  $354,483,587. 
By  1900,  without  a  check,  it  is  safe  to  say,  this 
property  will  reach  a' sum  exceeding  $3,000,000,000. 
So  vast  a  sum,  receiving  all  the  protection  and  bene- 
fits of  government,  without  bearing  its  proportion 
of  the  burdens  and  expenses  of  the  same,  will  not 
be  looked  upon  acquiescently  by  those  who  have  to 
pay  the  taxes.  In  a  growing  country,  where  real 
estate  enhances  so  rapidly  with  time  as  in  the 
United  States,  there  is  scarcely  a  limit  to  the  wealth 
that  may  be  acquired  by  corporations,  religious  or 
otherwise,  if  allowed  to  retain  real  estate  without 
taxation.  The  contemplation  of  so  vast  a  property 
as  here  alluded  to,  without  taxation,  may  lead  to 
sequestration  without  constitutional  authority,  and 
through  blood.  I  would  suggest  the  taxation  of  all 
property  equally." 

With  no  less  emphasis  President  Garfield  put  him- 
self on  record  in  the  following  words : 

"The  divorce  between  church  and  state  ought  to 
be  absolute.  It  ought  to  be  so  absolute  that  no 
church  property  anywhere,  in  any  state,  or  in  the 
nation,  should  be  exempt  from  equal  taxation;  for 
if  you  exempt  the  property  of  any  church  organiza- 
tion, to  that  extent  you  impose  a  tax  upon  the  whole 
community." 

Weighty  Press  Utterances. 

The  New  York  Evening  Post  in  its  greatest 
days,  when  edited  by  William  Cullen  Bryant,  spoke 
boldly  on  the  subject  of  church  exemption.  Hear 
it: 

"The  Evening  Post  has  long  been  of  the  opin- 
ion that  the  American  theory  of  a  self-supporting 
church  ought  to  be  carried  out  to  its  full  and  legiti- 
mate conclusion,  and  that  the  separation  of  church 
and  state  ought  to  be  complete.  It  should  include 
the  total  discontinuance  of  contributions  of  public 


-'64  ^gilEMPTlNG    THE    CHURCHES. 

(tfioney,  direct  or  indirect,  to  the  support  of  any  re- 
'^'tig'ibus  establishment.  We  have  never  been  able 
-jib  see  the  slightest  difference  in  principle  between 
■  ^th'e  appropriation  of  a  certain  sum  of  money  raised 
'■by  tax  to  a  particular  church,  and  a  release  of  that 
Mehiifdh  ■  from  a  tax  on  its  property  to  the  same 
^  ^ift^Mt.  The  cost  of  the  act  in  either  case  falls 
I'^i^On  the  taxpayers  generally."  '''^^''''''^-'"^  '  '  ^-f^^ 
^'^'- An  admirable  summary  of  thie^  vitait'^Hticipiesiin- 
'VOlved  is  contained  in  the  following  editorial  from 
'ffhe  San  Antonio  Express: 

'?rl   "The  Express  is  not  antagonistic  to  the  churches. 
■It  believes  that  many  of  them  are  doing  a  great  and 
noble  work;  but  it  does  not  believe  in  exempting 
•Sectarian  property  from  taxation  in  a  land  of  al- 
leged religious  liberty  at  the  expense  of  men  who 
^  regard  the  church  as  a  brake  on  the  wheels  of  prog- 
''i*ess,    an    incubus    on    civilization,    the  preservator 
•'of   atitique    ignorance,   the    storehouse    of    foolish 
superstition.    It  does  not  approve  of  the  church  pos- 
ing as  an  almoner  while  the  thin  purse  of  labor  is 
annually  mulct  to  make  it  a  present  of  several  mill- 
-  ions.     Let  it  be  just  before  it  attempts  to  be  gen- 
^'^rous.    Let  it  assume  its  due  proportion  of  the  pub- 
-'Wc  burdens,  and  perchance  there  will  not  be  so  much 
't^ed  of  its  dole.     The  church  should  not  profit  at 
^the  expense  of  the  poor;  it  certainly  should  not.fat- 
'*ten  at  the  cost  of  those  who  despise  it."  ■'•'  ^'^  ■■^'^^'^ 

Even  the  New  York  Independent,  wheh'it  was  a 

distinctly  clerical  magazine,  allowed  the  following 

clear  statement  of  principle  to  appear: 

j?/';"Xhe  time  has  come  when  all  religious  denomina- 

^^^ions  must  affirm  that  no  public  moneys  shall  be 

"tlsed    for   sectarian    instruction;   the   time-honored 

principle  of  the  separation  of  church  and  state  must 

lie  again  emphasized.    If  a  church  is  not  willing  to 

support  its  own  schools,  it  cannot  come  to  the  state 

■for  aid.    I  would  go  so  far  in  the  application  of  this 

\       principle  as  to  be  willing  to  see  all  our  churches 

--^     taxed  as  is  other  property.     We  have  no  right  to 

tax  unbelievers  that  churches  may  be  maintained; 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  65 

no  more  right  than  they  would  have  to  tax  churches 
for  the  support  of  Infidel  clubs." 

Expressions  by  IngersoU. 

The  efficacy  of  the  arguments  contained  in  th< 
foregoing  expressions,  chosen  from  among  many 
others,  is  independent  of  the  weight  attachable  to 
those  who  uttered  them.  One  and  all,  they  ex- 
press the  attitude  of  all  who  view  the  subject  with- 
out bias,  and  who  refuse  to  allow  self-interest  to 
swerve  them  from  a  frank  recognition  of  what  is 
due  to  the  principle  of  civic  justice.  No  better 
summary  of  the  main  issue  could  be  found  than 
the  vigorous  answer  of  Robert  G.  IngersoU  to  an 
interviewer.  That  the  great  Agnostic  orator  should 
show  strong  feeling  on  the  subject,  is  not  surpris- 
ing, nor  does  it  in  any  sense  weaken  the  logical 
force  of  his  protest.  It  is  only  natural  that  the 
victim  of  a  burglary  should  be  more  energetic  in 
his  complaint  than  a  third  person  who  has  slight 
interest  in  the  matter.  The  churches  have  had  many 
a  fling  at  the  peerless  champion  of  freedom  of 
thought ;  but  they  will  find  it  easier  to  slur  his  mem- 
ory than  to  refute  his  arguments.    He  says : 

"I  have  seen  a  memorial  asking  that  church  prop- 
erty be  taxed  like  other  property.  .  .  .  Such 
memorials  ought  to  be  addressed  to  the  legislatures 
of  all  the  states.  The  money  of  the  public  should 
only  be  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  Public 
money  should  not  be  used  for  what  a  few  gentle- 
men think  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  Person- 
ally, I  think  it  would  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  public 
to  have  Infidel  or  scientific — which  is  the  same 
thing — lectures  delivered  in  every  town,  in  every 
state,  on  every  Sunday;  but,  knowing  that  a  great 
many  men  disagree  with  me  on  this  point,  I  do  not 
claim  that  such  lectures  ought  to  be  paid  for  with 
public  money.  The  Methodist  church  ought  not  to 
be  sustained  by  taxation,  nor  the  Catholic,  nor  any 
other  church.  To  relieve  their  property  from  taxa- 
tion is  to  appropriate  money,  to  the  extent  of  that 


66  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

tax,  for  the  support  of  that  church.  Whenever  a 
burden  is  lifted  from  one  piece  of  property,  it  is 
distributed  over  the  rest  of  the  property  of  the 
state ;  and  to  release  one  kind  of  property  is  to  in- 
crease the  tax  on  all  other  kinds.  .  .  .  To  exempt 
the  church  from  taxation  is  to  pay  a  part  of  the 
priest's  salary.  The  Catholic  now  objects  to  being 
taxed  to  support  a  school  in  which  his  religion  is 
not  taught.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  the  school  that 
says  nothing  on  the  subject  of  religion.  He  insists 
that  it  is  an  outrage  to  tax  him  to  support  a  school 
where  the  teacher  simply  teaches  what  he  knows. 
And  yet  this  same  Catholic  wants  his  church  ex- 
empted from  taxation,  and  the  tax  of  an  Atheist  or 
of  a  Jew  increased,  when  he  teaches  in  his  untaxed 
church  that  the  Atheist  and  the  Jew  will  both  be 
eternally  damned!  Is  it  possible  for  impudence  to 
go  further?  .  .  .  In  my  judgment  the  church 
should  be  taxed  precisely  the  same  as  other  prop- 
erty. The  church  may  claim  that  it  is  one  of  the 
instruments  of  civilization  and  therefore  should  be 
exempt.     If  you  exempt  that  which  is  useful,  you 

exempt  every  trade  and  every  profession 

There  was  a  time  when  ministers  were  supposed  to 
be  in  the  employ  of  God,  and  it  was  thought  that 
God  selected  them  with  great  care — that  their  pro- 
fession had  something  sacred  about  it.  These  ideas 
are  no  longer  entertained  by  sensible  people.  Min- 
isters should  be  paid  like  other  professional  men, 
and  those  who  like  their  preaching  should  pay  the 
preacher.  They  should  depend,  as  actors  do,  upon 
their  popularity,  upon  the  amount  of  sense,  or  non- 
sense, that  they  have  for  sale.  They  should  depend 
upon  the  market  like  other  people;  and  if  people 
do  not  want  to  hear  sermons  badly  enough  to  build 
churches  and  pay  for  them,  and  pay  the  taxes  on 
them,  and  hire  the  preacher,  let  the  money  be  di- 
verted to  some  other  use.  The  pulpit  should  no 
longer  be  a  pauper.  I  do  not  believe  in  carrying  on 
any  business  with  the  contribution  box.  All  the 
sectarian  institutions  ought  to  support  themselves." 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES.  67 

The  Magnitude  of  the  Wrong. 

The  foregoing  chapters  having  demonstrated  the 
iniquity  and  indef ensibiHty  of  the  exemption  of 
church  property  from  taxation,  the  sole  remaining 
point  of  interest  concerns  the  amount  of  the  wrong 
inflicted  on  the  community  by  legaHzed  church  graft. 
That  it  is  very  considerable,  a  bare  inspection  of 
the  wealth  of  the  more  favored  churches  makes 
abundantly  plain.  The  enormous  holdings,  for  ex- 
ample, of  Trinity  Church  corporation  in  New  York 
city  prove  the  immense  possibilities  in  this  direction. 
Incidentally,  it  is  an  interesting  fact,  pointed  out 
in  detail  some  years  ago  by  John  E.  Remsburg,  that 
exemption  is  not  only  unfair  to  the  general  public, 
but  a  means  of  favoring  the  city  churches,  already 
rich  and  well-supported,  as  contrasted  with  the  rela- 
tively poor  and  weak  country  churches.  The  latter 
have  certainly  good  ground  to  complain  that  they 
do  not  get  their  fair  share  of  the  swag.  In  the 
country,  land  is  cheap  and  abundant,  and  under 
normal  conditions  does  not  change  much  in  value 
over  a  long  period  of  years,  while  general  taxes 
are  comparatively  low.  It  is  the  cities  that  pay  the 
mass  of  the  taxes;  and  it  is  in  the  cities  that  the 
rapidly  growing  population  causes  frightful  con- 
gestion, and  allows  the  most  unscrupulous  land 
speculation  to  return  the  largest  profits.  In  the 
general  scramble  for  "unearned  increments,"  prop- 
erty holders  who  are  exempt  from  the  payment  of 
taxes  are  given  an  overwhelming  advantage.  They 
take  no  risk,  can  wait  as  long  as  they  please  for  the 
expected  rise,  and  pocket  the  entire  amount  of  the 
increase  in  land  values,  to  which  they  have  made  no 
important  contribution.  The  state  actually  encour- 
ages and  urges  the  churches  to  become  land  gam- 
blers, and  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of 
the  people.  As  the  city  grows,  the  churches  grad- 
ually find  excuses  to  move  away  from  their  earlier 
locations,  selling  out  their  sites  at  huge  profits,  not 
one  dollar  of  which  is  restored  to  the  community 


68  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

as  conscience  money,  and  to  buy  less  costly  land  with 
part  of  the  proceeds,  investing  the  balance  where  it 
will  bring  substantial  returns.  No  wonder  they 
grow  rich  while  the  poverty  of  the  tenement  dwel- 
lers proportionately  increases !  And  no  wonder  the 
city  churches,  luxuriating  in  their  bloated  prosperity, 
are  able  to  lord  it  over  their  country  associates,  and 
to  rule  the  affairs  of  their  sect  with  an  iron  hand, 
despite  their  gross  numerical  inferiority.  No  won- 
der that  the  general  assemblies,  synods  and  the  like 
of  the  various  denominations  are  so  frequently 
characterized  by  peanut  politics  which  would  dis- 
grace^ a  ward  caucus,  and  by  bitter  wrangling  and 
exhibitions  of  ill-will  which  contrast  strikingly  with 
the  professions  of  Christian  love. 

Urban  Monopoly  and  Unfairness. 

As  Mr.  Rcmsburg's  article  (Truth  Seeker^  Jan. 
14,  1911,  p.  22,)  is  not  now  available  except  to  those 
possessing  files  of  the  paper,  no  apology  is  required 
for  reproducing  the  following  paragraph  from  it : 

"Ecclesiastical  property  is  confined  chiefly  to 
cities.  One  city  in  Massachusetts  owns  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  church  property  of  Massachusetts ;  one 
city  of  Pennsylvania  owns  nearly  one-third  of  the 
church  property  of  Pennsylvania;  one  city  in  Mis- 
souri owns  nearly  one-third  of  the  church  property 
of  that  state ;  one  city  in  Nebraska  owns  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  church  property  of  that  state.  One 
city  in  Illinois,  Chicago,  owns  more  than  three- 
eighths  of  the  church  property  of  IlHnois.  St.  Paul 
and  Minneapolis,  practically  one  city,  own  one-half 
of  the  church  property  of  Minnesota.  One  city  in 
Louisiana  owns  more  than  one-half  of  the  church 
property  of  Louisiana.  One  state.  New  York,  owns 
nearly  one-fourth  of  the  ecclesiastical  property  of 
the  United  States ;  while  one  city  in  New  York  owns 
more  than  one-half  of  the  church  property  in  that 
state.  One  city  in  Rhode  Island  owns  nearly  three- 
fifths  of  the  church  property  of  Rhode  Island;  one 
city  in  Delaware  owns  nearly  three-fifths  of  the 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  69 

church  property  of  Delaware;  one  city  in  Colorado 
owns  nearly  three-fifths  of  the  church  property  of 
Colorado;  while  one  city  in  Maryland  owns  nearly 
two-thirds  of  the  church  property  of  Maryland. 
Thus,  a  dozen  cities  own  one-half  of  the  church 
property  of  their  respective  states.  This  property 
includes  only  church  buildings.  The  proportion  of 
ecclesiastical  property  other  than  church  buildings 
owned  by  the  churches  of  these  cities  is  much 
greater.'  Two-thirds  of  the  ecclesiastical  property 
of  these  states  is  confined  to  these  cities.  And  yet, 
nine-tenths  of  the  churches  in  these  states  are  out- 
side of  these  cities.  One-tenth  of  the  churches  in 
these  states,  therefore,  own  two-thirds  of  the  church 
property  of  these  states.  Adding  the  other  cities  and 
large  towns  of  these  states,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  one- 
fifth  of  the  churches  own  four-fifths  of  the  church 
property.  The  property  owned  by  four-fifths  of  the 
church  organizations  consists  principally  of  modest, 
inexpensive  church  buildings.  If  church  property 
was  taxed,  the  amount  of  taxes  levied  on  these 
churches  would  not  be  great.  The  greater  portion 
of  taxes  would  come  from  the  costly  churches  and 
from  the  real  estate  owned  by  wealthy  church  cor- 
porations in  the  cities;  and  even  the  advocates  of 
church  exemption  cannot  deny  the  justice  of  taxing 
this  property.  Municipal  taxes  are  enormously  high ; 
and  the  exemption  of  so  large  a  property  imposes  an 
unjust  burden  on  those  who  have  to  pay  these  taxes. 
In  every  city  is  to  be  found  property  that  taxes 
have  devoured — families  who  have  been  rendered 
homeless  by  excessive  taxation." 

A  Church  Masks  a  Saloon. 

Of  the  many  queer  things  that  can  be  done  by 
virtue  of  tax  exemption  laws,  a  recent  episode  in 
New  York  city  furnishes  an  apt  illustration.  A  sa- 
loon keeper  had  for  some  time  a  monopoly  of  trade 
in  one  of  the  less  settled  but  growing  districts.  With 
the  opening  of  a  new  boulevard,  houses  began  to 
go  up ;  and  a  rival  was  not  slow  in  taking  advantage 


70 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 


of  the  opportunity  to  set  up  in  opposition  to  the 
first  comer.  The  newcomer  was  an  energetic  busi- 
ness man,  and  knew  how  to  draw  custom,  so  that 
he  at  once  made  considerable  inroads  on  the  patron- 
age of  his  older  competitor.  The  latter,  however, 
was  a  man  of  resources.  Among  the  few  lots  of 
land  not  yet  occupied  for  building  purposes  was 
one  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  second  saloon.  This 
was  quietly  purchased  by  the  older  saloonist,  and 
the  other  awaited  results,  expecting  to  see  a  third 
saloon  established  with  a  view  to  stealing  some  of 
his  trade.  His  wily  rival,  however,  knew  a  trick 
worth  two  of  that.  Almost  over  night,  a  rude 
shack  was  erected,  with  a  slight  steeple  which 
pointed  heavenward,  though  not  with  what  usually 
pass  for  heavenly  aims.  This  was  turned  over  free 
of  charge  to  a  handful  of  persons,  to  hold  meet- 
ings of  a  nominally  religious  nature.  Having  no 
taxes  to  pay  on  property  thus  dedicated  to  holy 
uses,  and  being  thus  able  to  hold  it  indefinitely  at 
practically  no  expense,  the  original  saloon  keeper 
straightway  appealed  to  the  police  department  to 
enforce  the  law  forbidding  the  existence  of  a  sa- 
loon within  a  certain  distance  of  a  church,  and  thus, 
at  the  latest  report,  was  on  the  eve  of  triumphantly 
driving  his  rival  from  the  field.  The  next  move 
would  naturally  be  to  purchase  the  abandoned  sa- 
loon at  a  low  figure,  allow  the  "church,"  having 
served  its  purpose,  to  give  up  the  ghost  in  an  un- 
obtrusive manner,  and  to  resume  business  with  the 
second  saloon,  where  the  discomfited  competitor 
had  been  compelled  to  leave  it  off.  Whether  the 
ingenious  scheme  worked  out  to  the  finish  or  not, 
the  writer  is  not  informed.  At  least,  it  went  far 
enough  to  demonstrate  the  remarkable  possibilities 
under  legislation  encouraging  the  juggling  with  re- 
ligious things  for  purposes  of  private  advantage. 

Another  Vulnerable  Defense. 

The  apologists  for  church  exemption  find  them- 
selves in  a  position  of  great  embarrassment  when 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  71 

the  nature  and  amount  of  the  exempted  property 
are  called  into  question.  In  the  difficulty  of  secur- 
ing accurate  and  complete  figures  they  attempt  at 
once  to  minimize  and  to  magnify  the  amount  in- 
volved. In  pleading  for  the  country  churches,  they 
raise  the  cry  of  poverty,  and  solemnly  aver  that 
these  feeble  institutions  are  so  dependent  on  state 
help  for  their  existence  that  without  it  they  must 
inevitably  perish.  The  claim  is  both  false  and  ir- 
relevant. It  is  false,  because  the  taxable  property 
of  the  country  churches,  as  may  be  readily  seen 
from  the  preceding  discussion,  and  may  be  learned 
by  any  person  through  direct  observation,  is  of  ex- 
tremely low  value,  and  bears  far  less  proportion 
to  the  available  income  of  their  aggregate  member- 
ship than  the  holdings  of  the  city  churches.  The 
few  dollars  of  taxes  which  an  honest  fiscal  policy 
would  impose  on  the  average  country  church  would 
be  raised  without  the  slightest  difficulty.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  it  is  not  the  ''poor  and  struggling  coun- 
try churches"  which  are  lobbying  against  the  re- 
moval of  exemption;  it  is  the  wealthy  city  corpora- 
tions, which  use  the  "poor  country  church"  argu- 
ment as  a  means  of  drawing  a  red  herring  across 
the  track,  and  diverting  attention  from  their  own 
handsome  pickings.  The  claim,  even  if  true,  would 
obviously  be  irrelevant,  since  it  is  not  the  business 
of  the  state  to  keep  churches  alive. 

Forgetful  of  their  professed  fear  on  behalf  of 
the  struggling  country  churches,  however,  the 
apologists  for  religious  graft  lay  tremendous  stress 
on  the  assertion  that  the  amount  which  the  state 
loses  through  the  churches  is  a  mere  bagatelle,  and 
that  the  taxpayers  would  not  gain  enough  to  help 
them  much,  if  it  were  reclaimed.  A  pat  retort,  of 
course,  is  that  if  this  be  the  case,  it  is  amazing  that 
the  churches  have  become  so  terrified  at  the  idea  of 
handing  over  so  small  an  amount  to  the  state. 
Wealthy  as  they  are,  if  the  sum  is  as  trivial  as  they 
say,  they  will  never  miss  it,  and  can  afford  to  be 
honest,  and  to  conciliate  the  favor  of  those  who 


72  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

are  now  driven  away  from  the  gospel  by  the  greed 
and  grafting  spirit  of  the  agencies  which  represent 
it.  Like  the  fiction  of  the  dying  country  churches, 
however,  the  claim  is  both  false  and  irrelevant.  It 
is  false,  as  will  presently  be  shown  by  some  of  the 
figures  which  have  become  available;  and  it  is  ir- 
relevant, because  the  moral  character  of  a  thief  is 
not  to  be  graded  according  to  the  amount  of  loot 
which  he  has  succeeded  in  acquiring.  The  recogni- 
tion of  the  right  of  the  church  to  receive  a  subsidy 
from  the  state,  and  thus  to  make  the  separation  of 
church  and  state  a  dead  letter,  would  remain  as 
serious  a  crime  against  the  democratic  principle,  if 
not  more  than  a  single  dollar  were  involved. 

New  York's   Blanket  Exemption  Law. 

Before  taking  up  the  subject  of  statistics,  it  will 
not  be  amiss  to  quote  the  exemption  law  of  New 
York  as  typical  of  church  graft  at  its  worst.  It 
will  be  seen  that  references  to  religious  uses  and 
purposes  are  ingeniously  smuggled  in,  side  by  side 
with  much  verbiage  as  to  institutions  serving  a  pub- 
lic purpose,  so  that  they  may  appear  to  fit  naturally 
among  such  bodies  as  so  minister  to  the  collective 
needs  of  the  community  that  they  deserve  to  be 
subsidized  by  the  state.  For  this  reason,  it  is  best 
to  cite  the  germane  portions  of  the  statute  in  full, 
instead  of  isolating  those  that  relate  solely  to  the 
churches.  Incidentally,  it  will  be  noted  that  the 
churches  are  not  once  mentioned  by  name.  It  is 
the  nature  of  graft  to  seek  shelter  under  evasion, 
and  to  avoid  clear  expression  of  its  intentions.  The 
following,  then,  is  drawn  from  Section  4,  subdivi- 
sion 7,  of  the  Tax  Law  of  New  York : 

"The  real  property  of  a  corporation  or  association  or- 
ganized exclusively  for  the  moral  or  mental  improvement 
of  men  or  women,  or  for  religious,  bible,  tract,  charitable, 
benevolent,  missionary,  hospital,  infirmary,  educational, 
scientific,  literary,  library,  patriotic,  historical  or  cemetery 
purposes  .  .  .  and  the  personal  property  of  any  such 
corporation  shall  be  exempt  from  taxation.  But  no  such 
corporation   shall   be   entitled  to   any   such   exemption,   if 


EXfiilPtlKG   THE   CUURCfiES.  7^ 

any  member  or  employee  thereof  shall  receive  or  may  be 
lawfully  entitled  to  receive  any  pecuniary  profit  from  the 
operations  thereof  except  reasonable  compensation  for 
services  in  effecting  one  or  more  of  such  purposes,  or  as 
proper  beneficiaries  of  its  strictly  charitable  purposes;  or 
if  the  organization  thereof,  for  any  of  such  avowed  pur- 
poses, be  a  guise  or  pretence  for  profit  .  .  .  or  if  it  be 
not  in  good  faith  organized  or  conducted  exclusively  for 
one  or  more  of  such  purposes.  The  real  property  of  any 
such  corporation  or  association  entitled  to  such  exemption 
held  by  it  exclusively  for  one  or  more  of  such  purposes, 
and  from  which  no  rents,  profits  or  income  are  derived, 
shall  be  so  exempt,  although  not  in  actual  use  therefor 
by  reason  of  the  absence  of  suitable  buildings  or  improve- 
ments thereon,  if  the  construction  of  such  buildings  is  in 
progress,  or  is  in  good  faith  contemplated  by  such  cor- 
poration or  association.  .  .  .  Property  held  by  any 
officer  of  a  religious  denomination  shall  be  entitled  to  the 
same  exemption,  subject  to  the  same  conditions  and  ex- 
ceptions, as  property  held  by  a  religious  corporation." 

In  the  comprehensive  list  of  exempted  classes  of 
property  enumerated  above,  it  will  be  observed  that 
all  save  those  of  a  religious  nature  have  at  least 
some  show  of  claim  to  be  regarded  as  ministering  to 
public  aims,  or  as  essential  to  the  existence  of  a 
civilized  community,  and  therefore  deserving  of 
public  encouragement.  Whether  the  claim  is  in  all 
cases  sufficient  to  warrant  exemption  from  taxation, 
need  not  be  here  discussed.  In  the  opinion  of 
many  students  of  the  problem,  nearly  all  exemptions 
are  illicit.  Whether  that  be  the  case  or  not,  it  has 
been  made  clear  that  the  argument  for  taxing 
churches  is  stronger  than  that  for  taxing  any  of 
the  other  classes,  and  the  argument  against  it 
weaker.  This  results  from  the  fact  that  religion 
is  more  distinctly  a  matter  of  the  individual  than 
is  literature,  science,  education  or  philanthropy. 
Hence,  even  if  it  be  good  public  policy  to  subsidize 
these  agents  of  social  progress,  it  by  no  means  fol- 
lows that  the  same  is  true  of  the  churches;  while, 
conversely,  the  taxation  of  churches  need  not  logi- 
cally embrace  the  taxation  of  any  of  the  other 
classes.  Each  must  stand  on  its  own  merits ;  and 
in  each  case  enter  considerations  that  make  it  im- 


74  Exempting  the  churches. 

proper  to  draw  the  fate  of  any  one  of  them  into 
that  of  any  other.  That  a  mischievous  and  loosely 
drawn  statute  has  bracketed  them  all  together 
should  not  blind  us  to  the  radical  differences  that 
exist  among  them,  or  to  the  fact  that  none  of  the 
grounds  on  which  exemption  of  most  of  the  others 
is  defended  apply  in  any  degree  to  the  churches. 

Land  Speculation  Invited. 

The  recklessness  of  the  enactors  of  the  New  York 
tax  law  is  visible  in  its  blanket  nature.  Not  satis- 
fied with  exempting  property  in  actual  use,  the 
statute  contains  a  provision  by  which  the  tax  asses- 
sor is  called  upon  to  become  a  telepathic  expert,  and 
to  divine  the  intentions  of  a  corporation  holding 
land  out  of  use !  Not  only  property  actually  used  for 
religious  purposes  is  to  go  untaxed,  but  also  land 
where  the  construction  of  buildings  for  the  purpose 
of  worship  "is  in  good  faith  contemplated!"  No 
method  for  testing  the  "good  faith"  is  provided, 
nor  any  safeguard  against  abuse  of  the  "good  faith" 
clause.  No  more  open  invitation  to  fraud  could  be 
devised.  No  penalty  for  evasion  is  provided,  and 
no  means  of  collecting  back  taxes,  in  case  the 
church  corporation,  after  grabbing  land  from  the 
heart  of  the  city,  and  holding  it  ten  or  twenty  years 
under  the  pretense  of  intending  to  build  on  it  at 
some  future  time,  shall  find  it  impracticable  or  un- 
desirable to  carry  out  the  "contemplated"  action, 
and  shall  sell  the  land  at  an  increased  valuation, 
and  put  a  handsome  amount  of  money  into  its 
treasury  through  the  kindness  of  government  in 
promoting  this  species  of  land  speculation  without 
risk.  Should  the  property  depreciate  instead  of  ris- 
ing, there  is  still  time  to  use  it  for  church  purposes, 
and  nothing  is  lost.  Every  other  land  speculator 
must  at  least  take  some  risk ;  but  the  church  is  play- 
ing a  sure  game  and  cannot  lose.  The  community 
pays  the  bill  for  the  benefit  of  the  sure-thing 
gambler.  If  it  be  urged  that  this  particular  clause 
allows  the  same  abuse  by  any  other  form  of  ex- 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES.  ^5 

empted  corporation,  the  answer  is  that  this  only 
makes  the  evil  all  the  greater.  The  clause  would 
be  bad,  even  if  it  applied  only  to  corporations 
rightfully  held  exempt  from  taxation  on  the  prop- 
erty in  actual  use  by  them  for  public  purposes ;  and 
the  wrong  is  multiplied  by  its  application  to  the 
churches,  which  have  no  legitimate  claim  to  exemp- 
tion under  any  conditions. 

Turn  now  to  the  last  sentence  in  the  law  as 
quoted.  This  works  in  two  main  ways.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  special  legislation  in  favor  of  the 
policy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  of  placing 
church  properties  in  the  hands  of  bishops,  over 
whom  there  is  no  adequate  check.  The  congrega- 
tion might  as  well  be  so  many  cattle  for  all  the 
rights  they  have  over  the  church  property  accumu- 
lated through  their  sacrifices.  All  they  are  for,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  hierarchy,  to  which  they  submit 
with  the  docility  of  sheep,  and  less  than  a  sheep's 
intelligence,  is  to  pay.  Contrary  to  the  entire  spirit 
of  self-government,  the  State  of  New  York  en- 
dorses this  exploitation  and  tyranny,  and  ordains 
that  the  irresponsible  bishops  shall  hold  other 
people's  property  free  from  all  taxation,  to  use  or 
abuse  as  they  see  fit.  The  provision  also  makes 
it  possible  for  any  individual  to  start  a  church  on 
his  own  hook,  for  any  ulterior  ends  he  may  see  fit, 
and  to  maintain  sole  authority  over  the  property  as 
an  "officer  of  a  religious  denomination,"  thus  under 
the  color  of  religion  to  claim  divine  sanction  for  the 
most  anti-social  ends,  and  to  receive  a  subsidy  from 
the  state  while  doing  so.  Its  second  use  is  to  com- 
plete the  parasitical  status  of  the  ordinary  parson  by 
exempting  his  house  and  land  from  taxation,  pro- 
vided only  he  is  not  using  it  to  buy  and  sell  goods, 
but  only  for  the  pretended  service  of  God.  When 
the  land  appreciates,  he  may  sell  at  a  profit,  and 
start  to  "serve  God"  in  a  brand  new  parsonage, 
putting  into  his  own  pocket  the  surplus  cash  thus 
sweated  from  the  community.  Like  the  church, 
he  may  gamble  in  land  values  to  his  heart's  con- 


16  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES. 

tent.  As  he  pays  no  taxes,  he  cannot  lose,  and  can 
hold  on  indefinitely,  where  the  ordinary  real  estate 
dealer  must  let  go  his  holdings  if  the  market  runs 
against  him.  The  state  thus  interposes  to  favor 
one  land  speculator  above  another,  and  to  tempt 
the  clergyman  to  neglect  his  spiritual  duties  for 
financial  profit.  The  provision  is  thus  an  outrage 
on  the  community,  an  unfairness  to  the  real  estate 
interests,  and  an  injury  to  whatever  is  good  in 
religion. 

A  Few  Figures. 

The  amount  of  the  indirect  subsidy  annually  paid 
to  the  churches  by  our  government  which  pretends 
to  separation  of  church  and  state  cannot  be  exactly 
determined.  Statistics  of  the  value  of  church  prop- 
erty are  inaccurately  gathered,  with  a  tendency  to 
underestimate ;  and  tax  rates,  of  course,  vary  within 
very  wide  limits.  Taking  the  figures  as  we  find 
them,  however,  and  assuming  an  average  tax  rate 
of  $1.50  per  $100,  we  shall  still  arrive  at  striking 
results. 

As  we  have  seen.  President  Grant,  in  his  presi- 
dential message  for  1875,  quotes  the  amount  of 
church  property  exempt  from  taxation  in  1850  as 
approximately  $87,000,000.  This  had  doubled,  he 
states,  in  1860;  and  the  official  figures  for  1870  were 
$354,483,587.  This  terrific  rate  of  growth,  far  in 
excess  of  the  growth  of  any  other  form  of  wealth, 
could  not,  of  course,  be  maintained  in  full;  but 
the  actual  increase  has,  none  the  less,  been  enor- 
mous and  alarming.  In  1890,  the  admitted  value  of 
church  property,  as  compiled  by  H.  K.  Carroll, 
LL.D.,  the  well-known  authority  on  religious  statis- 
tics, had  risen  to  $679,694,439.  The  latest  available 
figures  of  the  present  time  are  those  of  1906,  in 
which  year  the  church  property  of  the  country  was 
valued  at  $1,257,575,867.  Keeping  well  within 
bounds  in  estimating  the  value  of  this  favored  class 
of  property  in  the  present  year  (1915),  we  shall  be 
more  than  safely  conservative  in  calling  it  at  least 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES.  11 

$1,5(X),(XX),(XX);  and  it  is  still  rapidly  increasing. 
Thus,  from  1850  to  1915,  the  value  of  church  prop- 
erty was  multiplied  not  less  than  fourteenfold.  In 
the  same  space  of  time,  the  population  had  increased 
less  than  fourfold;  and  church  membership  has 
just  about  kept  pace  with  the  population,  showing 
a  growing  tendency  to  fall  behind.  In  other  words, 
the  churches  are  making  money  from  three  to  four 
times  as  fast  as  they  are  gaining  members  (winning 
"souls"  in  their  own  phrase),  and  the  same  num- 
ber of  times  as  rapidly  as  the  population  is  grow- 
ing. They  are  "laying  up  treasures  on  earth" 
faster  than  any  other  class  in  the  community  and 
at  the  expense  of  the  whole  community;  and  it  is 
no  wonder  that  their  clutch  on  the  "things  of  this 
world"  and  their  opposition  to  any  check  on  their 
graft  prove  them  amenable  to  the  saying:  "Where 
thy  treasure  is,  there  will  thy  heart  be  also."  When 
an  organization  so  rapidly  absorbs  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  it  cannot  resent  the  imputation  that  acquir- 
ing wealth  is  its  chief  concern. 

At  the  assumed  rate  of  taxation  ($1.50  per  $100), 
the  money  actually  filched  from  the  public  treasury 
by  the  churches  is  at  least  $22,500,000  a  year;  and 
this  minimum  calculation,  far  below  the  actual 
amount,  is  increasing  swiftly  from  year  to  year.  In 
all  the  talk  of  economy  in  taxation,  and  of  seeking 
new  sources  of  revenue,  when  will  our  "statesmen" 
have  the  intelligence  to  stop  this  frightful  leak? 
The  churches  owe  the  money,  they  can  afford  to 
pay,  and  they  should  be  made  to  pay.  Did  they 
not  set  the  satisfaction  of  selfish  greed  above  moral 
and  civic  considerations,  they  would  do  their  duty 
without  compulsion.  Since,  however,  they  will  do 
nothing  for  the  community,  except  when  they  ?^^ 
forced  to  obey  the  people's  will,  the  problem  is  only 
that  of  enlightening  the  public  as  to  the  manner  and 
degree  in  which  it  is  robbed.  If  legislatures  can- 
not be  found  with  moral  courage  to  withstand  the 
threats  of  the  church  lobby,  and  with  sense  to  pene- 
trate the  sophistries  of  the  hired  lawyers  arguing  in 


y 


78  EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 

behalf  of  the  church's  demands,  a  counter  force 
must  be  provided  in  an  enlightened  public  senti- 
ment so  strong  that  the  politician  will  find  his  po- 
litical future  dependent  on  his  deafness  to  the  ec- 
clesiastical sirens  and  his  support  of  full  justice 
to  the  taxpaying  citizens  as  against  the  pious  harpies 
now  permitted  to  prey  upon  them. 

To  enter  upon  the  figures  for  each  of  the  dif- 
ferent states  and  for  the  principal  cities  would 
savor  of  iteration.  In  no  case  will  analysis  of  the 
figures  for  any  state  or  city  negative  the  foregoing 
facts  or  conclusions.  Those  interested  in  pursuing 
the  question  of  statistical  detail  may  find  food  for 
study  and  reflection  in  the  work  of  H.  K.  Carroll, 
LL.D.,  "Religious  Forces  in  the  United  States," 
edition  of  1912,  pages  378-381  and  418-421.  Dr. 
Carroll  was  in  official  charge  of  the  department  of 
churches  in  the  census  of  1890  and  is  a  recognized 
authority  on  church  statistics.  Active  in  Methodist 
circles  all  his  life,  he  may  be  trusted  to  resolve  all 
doubts  in  favor  of  the  church,  and  his  testimony 
cannot  be  put  aside  by  church  apologists. 

Wealth  Increases  Faster  Than  Churches. 

Illustration  of  the  looting  of  the  public  treasury 
by  church  exemption  may  be  drawn  from  New 
York.  In  this  state  church  property  in  1890  was 
valued  at  $140,123,008.  In  1906,  a  period  of  four- 
teen years,  it  had  risen  to  $255,166,284.  Here,  as 
elsewhere  in  the  country.  Dr.  Carroll  points  out 
("Religious  Forces"  Introduction,  p.  59)  that  the 
increase  in  church  buildings  comes  nowhere  near 
keeping  pace  with  the  increase  in  values.  In  the 
country  as  a  whole  the  increase  in  values  from  1890 
to  1906  was  85.1  per  cent.,  while  the  increase  in 
church  edifices  was  only  35.3  per  cent.  In  New 
York,  the  increase  in  the  number  of  buildings 
within  the  period  given  was  only  from  7,942  to 
9,193,  or  less  than  16  per  cent.,  as  compared  to 
the  increase  in  value  of  more  than  82  per  cent. 
Even  with  this  small  increase  of  churches,  it  is 


EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES.  79 

notorious  that  more  buildings  exist  than  are  needed 
or  used.  But  taking  the  figures  as  they  are, 
it  is  self-evident  that  for  this  huge  increment 
of  value  the  community  gets  nothing.  Even  the 
friendly  Dr.  Carroll  is  forced  to  admit  this,  and 
to  draw  the  inevitable  conclusion  (Int.,  p.  60)  that 
the  increase  results  from  more  costly  edifices  and 
the  "natural"  increase  in  values,  which  can  mean 
nothing  but  speculative  land  values.  This  removes 
the  last  faint  pretext  for  exemption.  Even  suppos- 
ing that  the  services  rendered  by  the  churches  were 
indispensable  to  the  community,  it  is  palpable  that 
the  performance  of  such  service  draws  upon  only 
a  fraction  of  the  wealth  possessed  by  these  bodies. 
Out  of  the  immense  margin  they  could  well  afford 
to  bear  their  honest  share  of  civic  burdens,  and 
would  not  be  compelled  to  curtail  their  beneficent 
activities  in  order  to  do  so.  Honest  church  taxa- 
tion would  merely  prevent  the  storing  up  of  super- 
flous  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  people. 

Since  the  most  valuable  church  property  is  con- 
centrated in  the  cities,  a  glance  at  their  statistics 
should  not  be  omitted.  Figures  for  1890  are  given 
by  Dr.  Carroll  in  the  volume  cited,  pages  406-415. 
From  these,  it  appears  that  in  that  year  $313,537,- 
247  of  the  total  previously  given  was  situated  in 
the  124  cities  of  the  first,  second  and  third  class. 
The  population  of  these  cities  amounted  to  13,988,- 
938  in  1890;  that  of  the  whole  country  to  62,622,- 
250.  Thus  were  the  enormous  profits  from  the 
exemption  graft  poured  mainly  into  the  swollen 
coffers  of  the  city  churches.  While  serving  con- 
siderably less  than  one-fourth  of  the  population, 
they  had  amassed  nearly  one-half  of  the  property 
owned  by  all  the  churches  of  the  country.  The 
churches  of  New  York  city  alone  owned  in  the  year 
stated  property  to  the  value  of  $73,352,437,  more 
that  a  tenth  of  all  the  church  property  in  the  coun- 
try, although  then,  as  now,  containing  only  about 
one-twentieth  of  the  population.  While  no  exact 
figures  are  at  present  available  as  to  the  value  of 


80  EXEMPTING   THE   CHURCHES. 

church  property  in  the  metropolis  to-day  the 
amount  cannot  be  much  short  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars.  In  a  printed  brief  presented  to  the 
Committee  on  Taxation  on  the  New  York  Consti- 
tutional Convention,  William^  D.  Guthrie,  retained 
as  attorney  for  the  Roman  Catholic  interests,  esti- 
mates, according  to  figures  as  of  May,  1914,  the 
amount  at  $170,445,725.^  As  his  whole  aim  was 
to  minimize  the  amount  of  exemptions  this  is  cer- 
tainly none  too  high  a  figure,  and  is  probably  much 
too  low.  Allowing  it  to  stand,  however,  a  com- 
parison with  the  foregoing  data  will  show  that 
either  New  York  churches  are  at  a  fearful  rate 
growing  richer  and  richer  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  churches  of  the  country,  or  that  the  total  of 
church  property  in  the  land  has  risen  to  the  appall- 
ing figure  of  at  least  $1,700,000,000. 

Population  and  Profits. 

^Taking  the  church  population  instead  of  the  gen- 
eral population  as,  from  some  points  of  view,  a 
fairer  measure  of  the  degree  to  which  the  city 
churches  amass  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the 
country  churches,  we  find  that  the  total  number  of 
communicants  in  1890  was  20,618,307  in  the  entire 
country.  In  the  124  cities  of  importance,  the  num- 
ber was  5,302,018.  It  should  further  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Roman  Catholics  are  concentrated  in 
the  cities,  about  one-tenth  of  all  the  Catholics  in 
the  country  being  in  the  single  city  of  New  York; 
and  that  this  sect  does  not  keep  honest  records  of 
its  communicants,  but  practically  forces  all  the 
children  of  nine  years  of  age  and  above,  bom  in 
Catholic  families,  to  become  communicants,  and 
then  on  the  basis  of  "once  a  Catholic,  always  a 
Catholic,"   counts  them   forever  after  in  its  doc- 


"In  1913  an  analysis  of  the  official  figures  given  in  the 
City  Record  to  show  the  amount  of  exempt  property  in 
New  York  City  was  made  for  The  Truth  Seeker.  The 
exempted  church  property  listed  was  appraised  at  $244,- 
445,955. 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  81 

tored  figures.  Thus  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
born  Catholics  who  have  turned  Protestants  are 
counted  twice  in  making  up  religious  statistics,  once 
as  Catholics  and  once  as  members  of  the  denomina- 
tion to  which  they  have  transferred  their  allegiance ; 
while  the  ex-Catholics  who  have  left  the  church 
altogether  are  still  counted  in  to  swell  the  total. 
Thus  through  accepting  the  crooked  Roman  Catho- 
lic statistics,  the  ostensible  number  of  church  mem- 
bers in  the  country  is  greatly  overestimated  by  Dr. 
Carroll  and  others,  while  the  proportion  of  Catho- 
lics to  the  whole  number  is  likewise  immensely  ex- 
aggerated. Could  we  squeeze  out  the  water  from 
the  religious  statistics,  it  would  be  found  that  the 
actual  percentage  of  genuine  communicants  in  the 
cities  is  much  less  than  one  in  four.  Even  from 
Dr.  Carroll's  figures,  however,  it  is  but  little  more. 
Thus  a  church  member  in  one  of  the  cities  is  a 
partner  in  twice  the  wealth  of  a  church  member  in 
the  country;  and  "where  the  treasure  is,  there  will 
the  heart  be  also."  By  the  same  census,  the  num- 
ber of  communicants  in  New  York  city  was  only 
866,564,  or  less  than  one-twenty-third  of  the  total, 
and  this  in  spite  of  having  mtich  more  than  its 
share  of  persons  dishonestly  counted  as  Catholic 
"communicants."  So,  according  to  the  system  of 
church  exemption,  the  rich  New  York  churches, 
with  less  than  one  church  member  in  every  twenty- 
three  in  the  country  as  a  whole,  have  swept  into 
their  hands,  by  the  method  attributed  by  the  author 
of  the  Proverbs  to  the  daughters  of  the  horseleech, 
more  than  one-tenth  of  all  the  church  wealth.  No 
wonder  they  can  aflFord  to  hire  expensive  counsel 
to  appear  before  the  state  legislature  and  the  Con- 
stitutional Convention  to  demand  that  they  be  left 
undisturbed  in  the  profitable  enterprise  of  impov- 
erishing the  community  to  provide  more  luxury  for 
themselves. 

Preponderance  of  City  Property. 

A  final  comparison  will  prove  even  more  start- 


82  EXEMPTING    THE    CHURCHES. 

ling  than  what  has  gone  before.  In  1890,  the  total 
number  of  church  buildings  in  the  country  was 
142,639;  in  the  cities  referred  to,  the  number  was 
9,722;  and  in  New  York  city  it  was  917.  That  is 
to  say,  124  cities,  with  less  than  one- fourteenth  the 
number  of  church  buildings,  possessed  practically 
one-half  of  the  church  wealth ;  while  the  single  city 
of  New  York,  which  absorbed  more  than  one- tenth 
of  the  wealth,  had  less  than  one  out  of  every  155 
of  the  church  buildings  of  the  country!  No  won- 
der the  churches  of  the  large  cities,  and  of  New 
York  in  particular,  howl  bloody  murder  when 
asked  to  part  with  some  of  their  popular  graft  and 
pay  their  debts !  To  them,  at  least,  Christianity  is 
no  longer  a  religion  for  the  poor  and  disinherited 
of  earth,  but  the  special  enjoyment  of  idle  wealth 
and  heartless  vanity. 

What  New  York  lacks  in  number  of  churches  to 
the  population,  it  makes  up  in  the  luxurious  ele- 
gance of  those  it  does  possess.  Its  houses  of  wor- 
ship are  magnificent  religious  clubs  for  worship 
on  the  de  luxe  plan.  What  the  poor,  wandering 
Nazarene,  if  any  credence  is  to  be  placed  in  the 
story  of  his  life,  would  have  said  to  this  cynical 
burlesque  of  his  teachings,  may  be  left  to  the  im- 
agination. Were  there  any  honest  excuse  for  ask- 
ing the  state  to  bear  part  of  the  burdens  of  the 
church,  it  would  apply  in  a  tenfold  degree  to  the 
struggling  country  churches,  which  form  a  much 
more  organic  life  of  the  community  than  do  the 
city  ones,  and  may  much  more  plausibly  be  credited 
with  genuine  and  community-wide  social  service. 
As  has  been  seen,  however,  tax  exemption  going  in 
the  main  to  multiply  the  superfluous  wealth  of  the 
city  churches,  does  next  to  nothing  for  them. 

The  Rich  Against  the  Poor. 

In  addition  to  all  the  other  unanswerable  objec- 
tions to  the  exemption  system,  it  is  thus  irrepeala- 
bly  convicted  of  a  systematic  discrimination  in 
favor  of  the  rich  as  against  the  poor.     This,  in  a 


EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHES.  83 

nutshell,  is  the  spirit  of  present-day  Christianity. 
The  plethoric  churches  of  the  cities  are  the  main 
foes  of  economic  honesty.  It  is  they,  rather  than 
the  country  churches,  which,  feeing  expensive  law- 
yers and  maintaining  elaborate  lobbies  at  our  state 
capitals,  menace  our  politicians  with  ruin  and  bring 
all  forms  of  pressure  to  bear  to  terrorize  our  legis- 
latures, in  order  to  prevent  the  withdrawal  of  the 
special  privilege  that  heaps  up  in  their  hands  the 
earnings  wrenched  from  others  by  legal  favoritism ; 
and  in  all  this  they  are  not  seeking  to  protect  their 
existence  against  threatened  destruction,  nor  to 
keep  themselves  from  being  crippled  in  their  legiti- 
mate work,  but  to  add  more  millions  to  the  super- 
fluous treasure  they  have  already  extorted  from 
the  people,  and  to  cater  to  the  decadent  demand  for 
extravagant  display.  Isolated  instances  of  churches 
engaged  in  serious  attempts  to  grapple  with  the 
larger  social  needs  prove  nothing  to  the  purpose. 
Such  churches  need  no  graft  to  win  the  coopera- 
tion of  devoted  workers  and  benefactors.  If  they 
join  in  the  cry  for  exemption,  it  is  because  they 
are  made  catspaws  by  the  parasitic  churches,  and 
have  not  enough  faith  in  righteousness  to  shun  the 
practice  of  doing  evil  that  good  may  come. 

In  order  that  the  issue  might  be  made  as  clear 
as  possible,  the  discussion  has  been  confined  directly 
to  churches  and  church  property.  Of  the  property 
of  religious  and  semi-religious  bodies  other  than 
churches,  and  of  the  educational,  hospital,  philan- 
thropic, reformatory  and  other  institutions  con- 
trolled by  religious  bodies  and  exempt  from  taxa- 
tion— although  in  many  cases  making  their  osten- 
sible activities  a  cover  for  sectarian  proselytism, 
and  in  all  cases  using  their  otherwise  excellent  work 
as  a  means  of  advertising  their  sects — little  has 
been  said.  The  reasons  against  exemption  of 
church  property  apply  largely,  if  not  fully,  to  these 
as  well,  although  they  have  at  least  certain  specious 
grounds  for  favor  which  the  churches  cannot  show. 
It  cannot  be  doubted,  at  least,  that  the  more  com- 


84  EXEMPTING   THE    CHURCHLb. 

pletely  society,  in  city,  state  and  nation,  performs 
all  its  collective  functions  directly,  rather  than 
through  the  medium  of  any  semi-private  institu- 
tion partly  withdrawn  from  its  direct  supervision 
and  control,  the  better.  If  some  compromise  is 
found  necessary,  it  should  be  looked  upon  only  as 
a  temporary  expedient,  and  not  as  a  permanent 
policy. 

The  evils  attendant  upon  subsidizing  any  form 
of  sectarian  institution,  whatever  its  social  services, 
are  too  great  to  be  ignored.  Yet,  making  the  lar- 
gest possible  concessions  to  these  bodies,  such 
grounds  of  expediency  as  may  at  present  be  held 
to  justify  their  exemption  from  taxation  cannot 
legitimately  be  extended  to  the  churches,  whose 
mission  is  in  no  way  allied  to  any  function  of  or- 
ganized society. 

The  taxation  of  church  property  is  demanded  by 
every  consideration  of  sound  public  policy,  common 
sense,  democracy  and  justice.  In  the  day  when 
these  principles  are  heeded,  the  people  will  come 
into  their  own. 


The  matter  in  this  pamphlet  is  an  expansion  of  the 
argument  made  by  the  author,  June  1,  1915,  at  a  hearing 
held  in  the  Senate  Chamber  at  Albany,  New  York,  before 
the  Committee  on  Taxation  of  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention, in  support  of  an  amendment  offered  by  James 
L.  Nixon  of  Buffalo,  to  abolish  all  exemptions  of  church 
property  from  taxation. 


TDE  CBRISTIAN  SABBATfl. 


IS  IT  OF  DIVINE  ORIGIN? 


BY  J.    E.    REMSBURG. 

Is  the  Christian  Sabbath  of  divine  origin?  I 
propose  to  show  that  it  is  not — that  there  is  no 
more  divinity  attached  to  Sunday  than  to  any 
other  day.  I  propose  to  show  that  the  oft- 
repeated  claim  that  it  superseded  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath by  divine  anthority  is  false ;  I  propose  to 
show  that  it  was  originally  a  heathen  holiday, 
borrowed  from  the  pagan  world — the  venerabile 
die  solis,  a  day  once  consecrated  to  the  orb  of 
light,  but  which  has  been  obscured  by  the  thick 
clouds  of  theological  gloom,  that  in  the  darkness 
Superstition's  bats  and  owls  may  the  more  easily 
secure  their  prey;  I  propose  to  show  that  this 
Puritanical  institution,  whose  decrepit  form,  sup- 
ported by  the  crutches  of  state  laws,  still  lingers 
in  our  midst,  is  one  of  the  most  despicable  frauds 
tdat  a  tyrannical  priesthood  ever  imposed  upon 
credulous  humanity.  I  propose  to  show  that  he 
who  deals  in  pious  cant  about  "  Sabbath  desecra- 
tion" is  a  knave,  or  else 

Most  ii^aorant  of  what  he's  most  assured. 

The  testimony  that  I  bring  is  not  the  testimony 
erf  the  enemies  of  Chrictianity,  but  of  its  friends — 
of  its  most  learned,  most  loyal,  and  most  honor- 
able defenders.     My  witnesses  include  the  great 


2  THE   CHRISTIAN  SABBATH. 

apostle,  Paul ;  the  most  eminent  of  the  Christian 
fathers ;  the  Protestant  reformers ;  and  many 
more  of  the  church's  greatest  scholars  and  divines. 

ST.   PAUL. 

^*  One  man  esteemeth  one  day  above  another  : 
another  esteemeth  every  day  alike.  Let  every 
man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind  "  (Rom. 
xiv,  5). 

'*  Let  no  man  therefore  judge  you  in  meat,  or 
in  drink,  or  in  respect  of  a  holy  day,  or  of  the 
new  moon,  or  of  the  Sabbath  days"  (Colossians 
U,  i6). 

JUSTIN   MARTYR. 

*'  You,  because  you  are  idle  for  one  day,  suppose 
you  are  pious.  .  .  .  Our  God  is  not  pleased 
with  such  observances"  (Dialogues,  chap.  xii). 

*' You  see  that  the  heavens  are  not  idle,  nor  do 
they  observe  the  Sabbath"  (Ibid,  chap,  xxiii). 

IRKN^US. 

**  These  things  [circumcision  and  Sabbath  ob- 
servance], therefore,  which  were  given  for  bond- 
age, and  for  a  sign  to  them,  he  [Christ]  canceled 
by  the  new  covenant  of  liberty  "  (Against  Heresies) . 

TERTULLIAN. 

**The  observance  of  the  Sabbath  is  demon- 
strated to  have  been  temporary"  (Answer  to  Jews). 

**  By  us  [Christians],  to  whom  Sabbaths  are 
strange"  (On  Idolatry). 

EUSEBIUS. 

**They  [the  patriarchs]  did  not  therefore  regard 
circumcision  nor  observe  the  Sabbath,  neither 
do  we"  (Ecclesiastical  History,  Book  I.,  chap.  iv). 

ST.  CYRIL. 

** Jesus  Christ  hath  redeemed  t'ee.  Hence- 
forth reject  all  observance  of  Sabbaths"  (Savage's 
Sunday  Ob,servance). 


tSfi  CHRISTIAN  SABBATH.  3 

ST.  EPIPHANIUS. 

**God  regardeth  not  outward  cessation  from 
works  more  upon  one  day  than  another"  (Taylor's 
Works,  Vol.  XII). 

ST.  JEROME. 

"  Considered  in  a  purely  Christian  point  of  view 
all  days  are  alike"  (Neander's  Church  Histoiy, 
Vol.  III.). 

'*As  soon  as  they  [certain  devout  Christian 
women]  returned  home  on  the  Lord's  day,  they 
sat  down  severally  to  their  work,  and  made  clothes 
for  themselves  and  others"  (Heylyn's  History  of 
the  Sabbath,  Part  II.,  chap.  iii). 

LUTHER. 

**As  regards  the  Sabbath,  or  Sunday,  there  is 
no  necessity  for  keeping  it"  (Michelet's  Life  of 
Luther,  Book  IV.,  chap.  ii). 

'*Paul  and  the  apostles,  after  the  gospel  began 
to  be  preached  and  spread  over  the  world,  clearly 
released  the  people  from  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath"  (Luther's  Works,  Vol.  III.,  p.  73). 

**If  anywhere  the  day  is  made  holy  for  the  mere 
day's  sake — if  anywhere  any  one  sets  up  its  ob- 
servance upon  a  Jewish  foundation — then  I  order 
you  to  work  on  it,  to  dance  on  it,  to  ride  on  it,  to 
feast  on  it — to  do  anything  that  shall  reprove  this 
encroachment  on  the  Christian  spirit  of  liberty" 
(Table  Talk). 

MELANCTHON. 

**  The  scripture  allows  that  the  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  has  now  become  void,  for  it  teaches 
that  the  Mosaic  ceremonies  are  not  needful  after 
the  revelation  of  the  gospel"  (Augsburg  Con- 
fession). 

**The  observance  neither  of  the  Sabbath  nor  of 
any  other  day  is  necessary"  (Ibid). 


4  THE   CHRISTIAN  SABBATH. 

BUCER. 

**It  is  not  only  a  superstition,  but  an  apostasy 
from  Christ,  to  think  that  working  on  the  Lord's 
day,  in  itself  considered,  is  a  sinful  thing"  (Cox's 
Sabbath  Laws,  p.  289). 

ZWINGLE. 

*'It  is  lawful  on  the  Lord's  day,  after  divine 
service,  for  any  man  to  pursue  his  labors"  (Ibid, 
p. 287). 

BEZA. 

**  No  cessation  of  work  on  the  Lord's  day  is  re- 
quired of  Christians"  (Ibid,  p.  286). 

ERASMUS. 

*'  It  is  meet,  therefore,  that  the  keeping  of  the 
Sabbath  day  give  place  to  the  commodity  and 
profit  of  man"  (Paraphrase  on  Mark). 

CALVIN. 

**  The  Fathers  frequently  call  the  command  for 
the  Sabbath  a  shadowy  commandment,  because  it 
contains  the  external  observance  of  the  day, 
which  was  abolished  with  the  rest  of  the  figures 
at  the  advent  of  Christ.  .  .  .  The  same  day 
which  put  an  end  to  the  shadows  admonishes 
Christians  not  to  adhere  to  a  shadowy  ceremony" 
(Institutes,  Book  II.,  chap.  viii). 

"  Christians,  therefore,  should  have  nothing  to 
do  with  a  superstitious  observance  of  days"  (Ibid). 

ARCHBISHOP  CRANMER. 

"The  Jews  were  commanded  to  keep  the  Sab- 
bath day,  but  we  Christians  are  not  bound  to 
such  commandments  of  Moses's  law"  (Cranmer's 
Catechism). 

WILLIAM   TYNDALE. 

**We  be  lords  over  the  Sabbath,  and  may  yet 
change  it  into  Monday,  or  into  any  other  day  as 
we  see  need,  or  may  make  every  tenth  day  holy" 
(Answer  to  More,  Book  I.,  chap.  xxv). 


XHE  CHRISTIAN   SABBATH.  O 

JOHN  FRITH. 

**  We  are  in  manner  as  superstitious  in  the  Sun- 
day as  they  [the  Jews]  are  in  the  Saturday  ;  yea, 
are  we  much  madder  ;  for  the  Jews  have  the  word 
for  their  Saturday,  since  it  is  the  seventh  day,  and 
they  are  commanded  to  keep  the  seventh  day  sol- 
emn ;  and  we  have  not  the  word  of  God  for  us, 
but  rather  against  us,  for  we  keep  not  the  seventh 
day  as  the  Jews  do,  but  the  first,  which  is  not 
commanded  by  God's  law"  (Declaration  of 
Baptism). 

COLERIDGE. 

*'  The  English  Reformers  took  the  same  view  of 
the  day  as  Luther  and  the  early  church"  (Com- 
ments on  Luther's  Table  Talk). 

DR.   HESSEY. 

**The  Reformers  were  nearly  unanimous  on 
this  point.  Sabbatarianism  of  every  phase  was 
expressly  repudiated  by  the  chief  reformers  in 
almost  every  country"  (Bampton  Lectures). 

JOHN   MILTON. 

*'  The  law  of  the  Sabbath  being  thus  repealed, 
that  no  particular  day  of  worship  has  been  ap- 
pointed in  its  place  [by  divine  authority]  is  evi- 
dent" (Christian  Doctrines,  Book  II.,  chap.  vii). 

GROTIUS. 

"  These  things  refute  those  who  suppose  that 
the  first  day  of  the  week  was  substituted  in  place 
of  the  Sabbath,  for  no  mention  is  ever  made  of 
such  a  thing  by  Christ  or  his  apostles"  (Annota- 
tions on  Exodus). 

ARCHBISHOP   PALEY. 

**The  observance  of  the  Sabbath  was  not  one 
of  the  articles  enjoined  by  the  apostles"  (Moral 
Philosophy,  Book  V.,  chap.  vii). 

"The  opinion  that  Christ  and  his  apostles 
meant  to  retain  the  duties  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath, 


6  THB  CHRISTIAN   SABBATH. 

shifting  only  the  day  from  the  seventh  to  the  first, 
seems  to  prevail  without  sufficient  reasons" (Ibid). 
**The  resting  on  that  day  from  our  employ- 
ments, longer  than  we  are  detained  from  them  by 
attendance  upon  these  assemblies,  is,  to  Christians, 
an  ordinance  of  human  institution**  (Ibid). 

ARCHBISHOP  WHATELY. 

"It  is  not  merely  that  the  apostles  left  us  no 
command  perpetuating  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  and  transferring  the  day  from  the  sev- 
enth to  the  first.  .  .  .  There  is  not  even  any 
tradition  of  their  having  made  such  a  change; 
nay,  more,  it  is  even  abundantly  plain  that  they 
made  no  such  change"  (Notes  on  Paul). 

JEREMY  TAYLOR. 

'*  The  Lord's  day  did  not  succeed  in  the  place 
of  the  Sabbath,  but  the  Sabbath  was  wholly 
abrogated"  (Taylor's  Works,  Vol.  XII). 

'*The  primitive  Christians  did  all  manner  of 
works  upon  the  Lord's  day,  even  in  times  of  per- 
secution, when  they  were  the  strictest  observers  of 
all  the  divine  commandments"  (Ductor  Dubitan- 
tium,  Book  II.,  chap.  ii). 

BISHOP  WHITE. 

**  In  St.  Jerome's  days,  and  in  the  very  place 
where  he  was  residing,  the  devoutest  Christians 
did  ordinarily  work  upon  the  Lord's  day,  when 
the  service  of  the  church  was  ended  "  (Dialogues 
on  the  Lord's  Day,  p.  236). 

BISHOP  WARBURTON. 

The  observance  of  the  Sabbath  is  no  more  a 
natural  duty  than  circumcision"  (Divine  Legation, 
Book  IV.,  sec.  6). 

WILLIAM  PENN. 

**  To  call  any  day  of  the  week  a  Christian  Sab- 
bath is  not  Christian,  but  Jewish"  (Pcnn's  Works). 


tHE  CHRISTIAN  SABBATH.  7 

CANON   BARRY. 

"The  notion  of  a  formal  substitution,  by  apostolic 
authority,  of  the  Lord's  day  for  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath .  .  .  has  no  basis  whatever  in  holy 
scripture  or  in  Christian  antiquity"  (Lecture  on 
Sabbath). 

REV.  JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 

**  Scholars  are  now  generally  agreed  that  the 
Sabbath  obligation  was  not  transferred  by  Christ 
or  his  apostles  to  the  drst  day;  that  there  is  not 
in  the  Christian  scriptures  [New  Testament]  a 
single  command  to  keep  the  Sabbath  in  any  form 
or  on  any  day"  (North  American  Review). 

ANDREWS. 

**The  festival  of  Sunday  is  more  ancient  than 
the  Christian  religion,  its  origin  being  lost  in 
remote  antiquity.  It  did  not  originate,  however, 
from  any  divine  coraraand  nor  from  piety  toward 
God  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  set  apart  as  a  sacred 
day  by  the  heathen  world  in  honor  of  their  chief 
god,  the  sun"  (History  of  the  Sabbath,  p.  258). 

VERSTEGAN. 

"Unto  the  day  dedicated  unto  the  especial 
adoration  of  the  idol  of  the  sun,  they  [the  pagans] 
gave  the  name  of  Sunday,  as  much  as  to  say  the 
sun's  day  or  the  day  of  the  sun.  This  idol  was 
placed  in  a  temple,  and  there  adored  and  sacrificed 
unto"  (Antiquities,  p.  68). 

MORER. 

"  Sunday  being  the  day  on  which  the  gentiles 
solemnly  adored  that  planet,  and  called  it  Sunday, 
.  .  .  the  Christians  thought  fit  to  keep  the 
same  day  and  the  same  name  of  it,  that  they 
might  not  appear  causelessly  peevish,  and  by 
that  means  hinder  the  conversion  of  the  gentiles" 
(Dialogues  on  the  Lord's  Day,  p.  22). 


8  The  christian  sabbath. 

dean  milman. 
**  The  day  of  the  sun  would  be  willingly  hal- 
lowed by  almost  all  of  the  pagan  world  "  (History 
of  Christianity,  Book  III.,  chap.  iv). 

DOMVILLE. 

**  Centuries  of  the  Christian  era  passed  away 
before  the  Sunday  was  observed  by  the  Christian 
church  as  a  Sabbath.  History  does  not  furnish 
us  with  a  single  proof  or  indication  that  it  was  at 
any  time  so  observed  previous  to  the  Sabbatical 
edict  of  Constantine  in  a.d.  321  "  (Six  Texts,  p. 
241). 

• '  Not  any  ecclesiastical  writer  of  the  first  three 
centuries  attributed  the  origin  of  Sunday  observ- 
ance either  to  Christ  or  to  his  apostles"  (Six 
Texts,  supplement). 

KITTO. 

**  Though  in  later  times  we  find  considerable 
reference  to  a  sort  of  consecration  of  the  day 
[Sunday],  it  does  not  seem  at  any  period  of  the 
ancient  church  to  have  assumed  the  form  of  such 
an  observance  as  some  modern  religious  commun- 
ities have  contended  for.  Nor  do  these  writers  in 
any  instance  pretend  to  allege  any  divine  com- 
mand, or  even  apostolic  practice,  in  support  of  it" 
(Cyclopedia  of  Biblical  Literature,  Art.  Lord's 
Day). 

cox. 

"  There  is  no  evidence,  however,  that  either  at 
this,  or  at  a  period  much  later,  the  observance  was 
viewed  as  deriving  any  obligation  from  the  Fourth 
Commandment ;  it  seems  to  have  been  regarded 
as  an  institution  corresponding  in  nature  with 
Christmas,  Good  Friday,  and  other  festivals  of  the 
church"  (Sabbath  Laws,  p.  281). 

NEANDER. 

"The  festival. of  Sunday,  like  all  other  festi- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  SABBATH.  9 

vals,    was    always    only    a    human    ordinance" 
(Church  History,  Rose's  translation,  p.  i86). 

DR.    HENGSTENBERG. 

•  *  The  opinion  that  the  Sabbath  was  transferred 
to  Sunday  was  first  broached  in  its  perfect  form, 
and  with  all  its  consequences,  in  the  controversy 
which  was  carried  on  in  England  between  the 
Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians  [about  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century].  .  .  The  Presbyteri- 
ans were  now  in  a  position  which  compelled^hem 
either  to  give  up  the  observance  of  the  Sundaj^,  or 
to  maintain  that  a  divine  appointment  from  God 
separated  it  from  the  other  festivals.  The  first 
they  could  not  do.  .  .  .  They  therefore  de- 
cided upon  the  latter"  (Lord's  Day,  p.  66). 

DR.  HEYLYN. 

"The  brethren  had  tried  many  ways  to  sup- 
press them  [church  festivals]  formerly,  as  having 
too  much  in  them  of  the  superstitions  of  the 
church  of  Rome,  but  they  had  found  no  way  suc- 
cessful till  they  fell  on  this,  which  was  to  set  on 
foot  some  new  Sabbath  doctrine,  and,  by  advanc- 
ing the  authority  of  the  Lord's-day  Sabbath,  to 
cry  down  the  rest"  (History  of  the  Sabbath). 

'*  Though  Jewish  and  Rabbinical  this  doctrine 
was,  it  carried  a  fair  show  of  piety,  at  the  least, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  common  people,  and  such  as 
did  not  stand  to  examine  the  true  grounds  thereof, 
but  took  it  upon  the  appearance;  such  as  did 
judge,  not  by  the  workmanship  of  the  stuff,  but 
the  gloss  and  color,  in  which  it  is  not  strange  to 
see  how  suddenly  men  were  induced,  not  only  to 
give  way  unto  it,  but  without  more  ado  to  abet 
the  same,  till  in  the  end,  and  in  very  little  time, 
it  grew  the  most  bewitching  error  and  most  popu- 
lar infatuation  that  ever  was  infused  into  the  peo- 
ple of  England  "  (Ibid). 


iO  THE    CHRISTIAN   SABBATH. 

REV.  J.  N.  WAGGONER. 

"Read  your  Bible  through  a  hundred  times 
with  reference  to  this  subject,  and  you  will  each 
time  become  more  and  more  convinced  of  the 
truthfulness  of  the  following  notable  facts : 
I.  There  is  no  divine  command  for  Sunday  ob- 
servance. 2.  There  is  not  the  least  hint  of  a  Sun- 
day institution.  3.  Christ  never  changed  God's 
Sabbath  to  Sunday.  4.  He  never  observed  Sun- 
day as  the  Sabbath.  5.  The  apostles  never  kept 
Sunday  for  the  Sabbath.  6.  There  is  no  prophecy 
that  Sunday  would  ever  take  the  place  of  the  Sab- 
bath. 7.  Neither  God,  Christ,  angels,  nor  in- 
spired men  have  ever  said  one  word  in  favor  of 
Sunday  as  a  holy  day"  (The  Truth  Found). 

CARDINAL   GIBBONS. 

**  Read  the  Bible  from  Genesis  to  Revelation, 
and  you  will  not  find  a  single  line  authorizing  the 
j^anctification  of  Sunday  as  a  Sabbath"  (Faith  of 
Our  Fathers,  p.  11 1). 

ALEXANDER   CAMPBELL. 

**  There  is  no  precept  or  command  in  the  New 
Testament  to  compel  by  civil  law  any  man  who  is 
not  a  Christian  to  pay  regard  to  the  Lord's  day. 
It  is  without  authority  of  the  Christian  religion. 
I  write  this  from  principle.  I  have  but  one  object 
in  view — the  suppression  of  an  anti-rational,  anti- 
constitutional,  and  anti-scriptural  confederation, 
that  I  conscientiously  believe  to  be  dangerous  to 
the  community,  and  inimical  to  civil  and  religious 
liberty ;  and  while  I  am  able  to  wield  pen,  I  will 
oppose  every  such  encroachment  on  human  rights** 
(Washington,  Pa.,  Reporter,  1821). 


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